Bio Flashcards
Explain the niche concept
The full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives and the way in which the organisms use those conditions.
Fundamental niche
Full range, potential mode of existence
Zonation
The division of an ecosystem into distinct zones that experience similar abiotic conditions. In a more global sense, zonation may also refer to the broad distribution of vegetation according to latitude and altitude.
An autotroph
Produces its own food, self feeding
Outline the cause of tides, including the variation between neap and spring tides.
Tidal effects are from gravitational forces from the moon and the sun. A full moon and a new moon will cause a spring tide, which is an extra high tide, and a neap tide occurs during quarter moons.
What are Factors that affect the distribution of animals
Temperature, water, breeding sites, food supply and territories.
What affects the distribution of plants and animals?
Affected by limiting factors
Competition:
When fundamental niches of two species overlap
Herbivory:
Consumption of plant material by animals
Predation:
Consumption of animal material by animals
Spatial habitat:
Where an organism lives
Feeding activities:
What and how it eats
What is it called to have Interactions with other species?
Interspecific competition
What is the realised niche
The actual mode of existence resulting from adaptations and competition
What is Competitive Exclusion
The ability of two species with the same described niche to coexist
What is the use of a transect to investigate the change along an environmental gradient (abiotic factor)?
A transect is a line placed across a community of organisms. Transects are usually carried out to provide information on the distribution of species in the community
Species:
Groups of individuals of common ancestry that closely resemble each other and that are normally capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring naturally
Population:
A group of organisms of the same species which live in the same area (habitat) at the same time
Community:
Groups of populations of organisms living and interacting with each other
Ecosystem:
Natural unit of living (biotic) components and non-living (abiotic) components (community+abiotic factors)
Habitat
An ecological area occupied by a particular species
Factors that affect the distribution of plants
Temperature, water, light, soil pH, salinity, and mineral nutrients
A heterotroph
An organism that eats other plants or animals for energy and nutrients
Consumers:
Feed on living organisms
Detritvores
Internally digest decaying organic matter
Saprotrophs:
Externally digest decaying organic matter, and recycle nutrients.
What is a food chain
Food chains show the path of energy, arrow points towards the thing doing the eating (as that is where the energy goes)
What is a food web?
Complex diagrams that show feeding habitats of organisms in an ecosystem
Trophic level
The trophic level of an organism is the position that it occupies in a food web or chain
Different level of consumers
Producer, Primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer, quaternary consumer, quinary consumer, senary consumer
What is the initial energy source for all communities?
Light is the initial energy source for all communities
Explain the energy flow in a food chain
Arrow points towards the thing doing the eating, as the energy goes there, and 10% of the energy is consumed and transferred
Are energy transformations 100% efficient?
Energy transformations are never 100% efficient
Describe reasons for the shape of pyramids of energy.
Only about 10% of energy is transferred from one level to the next and they are drawn to scale.
The four phases in a sigmoid (S-shaped) population growth curve
Lag phase,
Exponential phase,
Transitional phase,
Plateau phase.
How population size is affected by natality, immigration, mortality and emigration.
Population growth depends on the number of individuals added to the population from births (natality) and immigration, minus the number lost through deaths (mortality) and emigration
how do limiting factors influence the carrying capacity for a species.
the availability of food, predation pressure or available habitat, affect organism growth and population growth, and distribution
Exponential curve:
Early on, growth is exponential. Exponential growth is sustained only when there is no environmental resistance.
Cause for exponential growth:
plentiful resources (food, water, territory), little to no interspecies competition and little to no predation or disease
transitional phase
Logistic curve: As the population grows, the rate of population increase slows, reaching an equilibrium level around the carrying capacity.
environmental resistance
The population encounters resistance to exponential growth as it begins to fill up the environment.
Environmental resistance increases as the population overshoots the carrying capacity
Carrying capacity
The population density that can be supported by the environment
Plateau phase:
The population tends to fluctuate around an “equilibrium level”. The fluctuations are caused by variations in birth rate and death rate as a result of the population exceeding or falling below carrying capacity.
Crest:
The highest point of the wave
Trough
The lowest point of the wave
Amplitude
How far the wave moves from rest position
Wavelength
The distance between one point on a wave and the exact same place on the next wave
What cause surface waves?
Surface ocean waves are caused by winds
What causes tsunamis?
Tsunamis are caused by deep ocean waves initiated by plate movements
Surface waves:
Surface waves are caused by built-up energy or wind, and they are shallow and near the surface. They also have a short wavelength of 100-200m.
Tsunamis
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes or other tectonic motions, are a deep water column. They have a long wavelength (500-1000km)
What is competition within the same speceis?
Intraspecific competition
