an assemblage of species (or taxa) found together in a particular area at a particular time. It is generally assumed that a paleocommunity will include some degree of time averaging. Persistence:

characteristic of an organism that has been favored by natural selection. Alpha diversity:

the process of combining samples after collection for data analysis. Beta diversity:

the process of categorizing samples (or species) using a continuous variable that has been divided into smaller divisions (e.g., million year time bins, or body size bins) Biome:

Chance:

A geographically restricted, natural assemblage of interacting animal/plant populations that has maintained its basic structure over a geologically significant period. Community:

the fraction of all possible links that are realized in a network. typically used in food web analysis. Contingency:

The area in which and physical conditions under which sediments are deposited, including sediment source. Ecological disparity:

Unexpected - and often disproportionately large - consequences of changes in the environment (such as change in climate or invasions of alien species). (www.greenfacts.org/glossary/def/ecological-surprises.htm) Ecomorphology:

many functional and operations definitions; ecologists think in terms of dominant taxa, processes. We define in terms of patterns and composition because we can’t see the processes but assume that the same ones are at work as in modern analogues. We can see food webs, snapshot example of spatial distribution, Emergence: