BIO205 Midterm 1 Flashcards
ECOLOGY
is the study of the interactions that determine the distribution and abundance of organisms.
ORGANISM
refers to a single individual of any type of living creature on the planet.
ECOSYSTEM
is defined as a group of interacting organisms and their physical environments.
AN EPOCH
is a subdivision of the geological timescale, and Crutzen and Stoermer were emphasizing the central role that humans play in the current era.
AN AD HOC FALLACY
is a story or narrative that explains an observed pattern or process and the ‘neatness’ of the explanation or story presented as evidence of the correctness of the explanation.
MANIPULATIVE EXPERIMENTS
a scientific experiment in which the researcher intentionally alters one or more conditions in order to examine the hypothesis.
HYPOTHESIS TESTING
a method of scientific inquiry used to whether an assumption or explanation applies to a group or sample.
MANIPULATED ASPECTS
are considered treatments, and researchers collect data on how the ecological system responds to the treatments.
THE NULL HYPOTHESIS
is a statement proposing that the focal explanatory factors do not have an effect.
THE ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS
is a statement proposing that the focal explanatory factors do have an effect, and scientists will often specify an effect that accounts for the observed pattern or process.
PHYSIOLOGY
is the study of bodily functions and cellular mechanisms at work within living organisms.
BEHAVIOUR
encapsulates the way in which individuals of a species physically interact with each other, with individuals of other species and with their environment.
OPTIMIZATION OF ENERGY ACQUISITION
involves maximizing benefits relative to cost and we can assess an organisms actions and traits through a lens.
TRADE OFF
how individuals get food or energy, how they divide energy among different bodily functions, how they balance water gain with water loss, and how they maintain internal body temperature in the face of changing external climatic conditions.
CELLULAR RESPIRATION
is a metabolic process that breaks large molecules into smaller ones and releases energy and water in the process. The released energy in metabolism is eventually dissipated to the environment as “waste” heat.
SEMELPAROUS ORGANISM
organism that reproduces just once in their lifetime
TEROPAROUS ORGANISM
organism that reproduces multiple times; reproduction is spread over multiple years or seasons
ENERGETIC PROFITABILITY
is equal to the ration of energy gained from eating that prey item to the energy costs associated with acquiring and eating the prey.
SEARCH COSTS
before predators can eat prey, they first have to find them.
HANDLING COSTS
once the prey is found the predator has to capture, manipulate and consume it.
POIKILOTERMS
organisms that do not regulate their internal temperature but largely allow their internal body temperature to follow external temperature.
ECTOTHERMS
organisms that regulate their internal temperature using external mechanisms.
ENDOTHERMS
organisms that regulate their internal temperature using both external and internal mechanisms.
HOMEOTHERMS
endotherms that use metabolic heat to maintain their internal temperature at a consistent level.
INDETERMINATE GROWTH
when the species does not stop growing as an adult.
THERMAL TRADE OFF
the trade off between heat and water acquisition.
GRAND-TRADE-OFF
each species evolves is own unique suite of physiological and behavioural traits that complement and enhance each other. These traits collectively allow individuals of the species to live and reproduce within a limited set of environmental conditions.
PER-CAPITA RATES
expected births and death in a population.
TRANSECT METHODOLOGY
has many variants, including counting by sound, which is often used to census arboreal or nocturnal species with distinctive sounds.
MARK-RECAPTURE SAMPLING
requires capturing, tagging and releasing individuals and then resampling.
OPEN POPULATION
when a population experiences lots of immigration and emigration.
CLOSE POPULATION
when a population has no immigration or emigration.
POPULATION
is a group of the same species who can mate and expand on it; a population is also a group of individuals of the same species that is spatially distinct from other groups of individuals of the same species.
NICHE SPACE
a region in a multidimensional space constrained by environmental factors that affect the fitness of individuals in that species.
ECOLOGICAL NICHE
the specific set of environmental conditions in which an organisms can live and reproduce.
NICHE
an organisms unique position or location within an ecosystem, including the range of conditions for the species to persist along with its ecological role in the system.
COMMUNITY ECOLOGY
the study of ecological interactions between individual of two or more species.
INTERSPECIFIC COMPETITION
is competition for resources among individuals of different species.
Intraspecific COMPETITION
which is competition among individuals of the same species in a single population, particularly with response to limited resources and a population’s carrying capacity.
INTERFERENCE COMPETITION
individuals directly interact with each other through aggressive behaviour or behavioural displays in order to increase access to a limiting resource.
RESOURCE COMPETITION
occurs when individuals of one species more efficiently consume or use up a shared resource. (also called exploitative competition). This action lowers the availability of the resource for individuals of the other species, thereby affecting their fitness.
FUNDAMENTAL NICHE
which is the full range of conditions and resources in which individuals of a species can survive and reproduce.
REALIZED NICHE
which in the context of interspecific competition, is the niche space that individuals of a species can access in the presence of their competitors.
EXPLOITATION
an interaction between individuals of two species in which the individual of one species increase in fitness by consuming of another species. Individuals of the consumed species experience a decrease in abundance or fitness.
PREDATION
in which a predatory kills and consumes prey.
PARASITISM
in which parasites obtain energy form their hosts by attacking the host’s body or organs and consuming tissues or fluids, often without killing the host.
HERBIVORY
in which the exploiters consume plants, either whole plants or select parts of them.
ALDO LEOPOLD
Said that metaphorical wounds that he described have escalated in both frequency and intensity; as well as human actions dominate the planet and have led to a biological world that is rapidly shifting towards an unknown future state.
STOERMER & CRUTZEN
Suggested that the pervasive planetary damage by humans warrants calling the currents geological epoch the Anthropocene.
EVIDENCE OF ANTHROPOCENE
in 2017 concluded that human impact has now grown to the point that it has changed the course of Earth history by at least many millennia.
THE GREAT ACCELERATION GRAPH
Demonstrate massive increase in the human population and our energy use; huge additions of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, a rise in air surface temperatures. Showed that over the years there has been a huge increase in certain factors.
RICHARD CORLETT
suggests that recognizing the acceleration nature of human influence creates a kind of moral imperative that we conserve and restore biodiversity.
EARLY ECOLOGISTS
were called naturalists, they were skilled and patient observers of nature who inferred patterns and processes from their observations.
HUMAN ACTIONS
leading to increased rates of extinction or permanent loss of species and other groups of organisms, climate change in the form of substantial alterations to global air and ocean temperatures and precipitations, urbanization through the conversion of natural environments into human dominated landscapes, and homogenization of distinct habitats an invasive or non-invasive species come to dominate many locations.
DESIGNING AN ECOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT
the goal is to alter or manipulate various key aspects of an ecological system to see how the changes affect ecological outcomes or responses.
STEPS OF HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Make observations about the natural world that raise questions in the observer’s mind. Propose this idea as both a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis.
ADVANTAGES OF EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH
requires researchers to carefully consider their observation and use them to craft specific hypothesis that are falsifiable. Demonstrate the effects of focal factors and influences of these factors. Methods should be repeatable.
ECOLOGICAL MODELLING
provides another way of exploring how various factors affect ecological dynamics without having to manipulate real ecosystems.
CONCEPTUAL MODEL
can take many forms but it essentially a theoretical construct that puts various components in relationship to each other.
MATHEMATICAL MODEL
requires researchers to refine their thinking about what parts of a system are most important to include in a model and how these parts relate to one another.
ANALYTICAL MODEL
allows equations to be solved or to produce important insights from analyzing the relationships among variables.
MULTIPLE HYPOTHESIS
is used for situations we cannot logistically or ethically conduct an experiment. Collect reams of quantitative observational data on large spatial or temporal scales without sacrificing the precision of those measurements.
SIMULATION MODEL
is a version of a conceptual or mathematical model that is solved or run on a computer in order to predict the models performance.
EXPERIMENTAL ECOLOGY
manipulative experiments, focus on converting observations into hypothesis. The goal is to alter or manipulate various key aspects or focal factors of an ecological system to see how the changes affect ecological outcomes.
IMPORTANCE OF TRADE OFF
an organisms cannot have it all, that having one trait may preclude having another and that limited resources lead to limited options in behaviour and growth. The time or energy an organisms spends acquiring one resource is not available to spend acquiring another resource.
PRINCIPLE OF ALLOCATION
energy allocated to one of life’s necessary physiological functions will reduce the amount that can be allocated to other such functions, so allocation indicated priority. The amount of energy taken in by an individual must equal the amount that is used plus the amount that is lost.
OPTIMAL FORAGING THEORY
that an individual animal acts to gain the most energy for the least cost when making its foraging decisions, with the overall goal of maximizing its evolutionary fitness.
PHOTOSYNTHETIC TRADE-OFF
between water loss and energy acquisition is essential to prevent water loss. Plants allocate their limited energy towards growth, survival and reproduction.
EXPOSURE TO EXTREME TEMPERATURES
cold temperatures can freeze cells, water in cells expand bursting the cell walls. hot temperatures cellular structures and DNA break down.
BUILDING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL
focuses on how population abundance changes over time.
MECHANISMS THAT CAUSE INCREASE AND DECREASE OF POPULATION
increase in population is caused by birth and immigration, decreasing in population is caused by death and emigration.
DISCRETE TIME POPULATION MODEL
is to calculate the population abundance or density once after each full year and does not consider what happened in each moment throughout the year.
ASSUMPTIONS OF DISCRETE TIME POPULATION MODEL
assumes the the population breeds or reproduces once per time period, assumes that birth and survival rates are constant, assumes that every individual has the same birth and survival rate, and treats males and females identically.
CONTINUOUS-TIME POPULATION GROWTH MODEL
keeps track of all the little changes in population abundance that accumulates through time.
RESOURCE UTILIZATION CURVE:
provide a way to explore overlap in resource use by two different species.
COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE
is when two species are too similar in their resources they cannot co-exist.
PRIORITY EFFECT
meaning the species that arrives before has the upper hand in competitive situations.
STABLE COEXISTENCE
is a stable equilibrium point where two species coexist at unchanging densities.
UNSTABLE COEXISTENCE
an outcome of a competition model that leads to an unstable equilibrium that contains both species because the equilibrium is unstable the two species in reality do not coexist and the species that arrives firsts generally excludes the other species
RESULTANT VECTOR
is a line is Lotka-Volterria competition or predication model phase-plane graph that indicates the directions in which the population abundances of the two species of interest will move over time.
PHASE-PLANE GRAPH
is a graphical representation of two population densities simultaneously, with the density of one species given along one axis and the density of the other species given along the other axis. Used to explore outcomes of interspecific competition and exploiter prey interactions.
COMPETITION COEFFICIENT
he numeric conversion term in the Lotka-Volterria competitions equation that translates the relative effect of an individual of a competing species into units of individuals of the focal species
NEED FOR ENERGY
creates ongoing attack-and-defense interactions between the eaters and the eaten.
EXPLOITER-PREY CYCLE:
a complex process between predator and prey in which the density of abundance of each species alters the density or abundance of the other species; predator density increases as prey density increases but predator density increases as prey density decreases. This leads to increasing and decreasing densities of each species, with the prey species leading the cycle and the predator species following 1/4 cycle behind.
LOTKA-VOLTERRA MODEL
examined unlimited, continuous population growth for prey and then added in the effects of an exploiter population. Exploitation model they uses separate population growth equations for exploiter and for prey. It is assumed that the two species were interacting in a well-resourced environment free from other species.
THE PREY EQUATION
needs an intrinsic rate of population growth that reflects natural birth and death rates without the influence of exploiter species. Where dNp/dt is the instantaneous change in prey population density over a continuous time, r is the intrinsic rate of increase for the prey population, Np is the prey population density, Ne is the exploiter population density and f represents the capture rate.
*dN/dt = rNp - fNpNe
THE EXPLOITER EQUATION
each exploiter individual can only reproduce if it consumes enough food, but exploiters cannot convert energy prey items they consume into new exploiter offspring. Exploiter conversion factor (c) that allows us to translate consumed food into an expected number of offspring.
*dN/dt = cfNpNe-dNe
EQUILIBRIUM EQUATIONS
determine the conditions under which either the prey population or the predator population is neither increasing nor decreasing. Each equation only predicts the growth of the focal species, so the prey equation will lead to a prey isocline, and the exploiter equation will lead to an exploiter isocline, resulting in a pair of isoclines on the phase-plane graph.
P = E / (S + H)
P = Energetic Profitability Equation
E = energy gained from ingesting prey
S = energy cost of searching for prey
H = energy cost of handling
N = nM/m
N = Population Size
n = total number of animals captured in second sample
M = number of animals marked and captured in first sample
m = number of animal in second sample marked
