Biology- B2 Flashcards
What is the first and last discrete group?
- the first is Kingdom
- the last is species
What do dicrete groups cause problems with?
- intermediate organisms
- hybrids
- asexual organisms
What can organisms do?
- eat each other (predators)
- gain from each other (mutualism)
- feed off each other (parasites)
How are organisms classified?
- they are classified using natural systems
What groups are organisms classified into?
- discrete groups
What do natural systems give information about?
- evolutionary relationships
What will similar organisms compete with each other for?
- food
Which organisms will compete more?
- organisms that are in the same niche or are in the same species
At each stage of the food chain, what is lost?
- energy
What are food chains limited to?
- a small number of trophic levels
What does the recycling of carbon involve?
- photosynthesis
- feeding
- respiration
- decomposition
What are organisms in cold conditions adapted to?
- staying warm
- move on the snow
What are examples of natural selection occurring today?
- warfarin resistance to rats
- antibiotic resistance to bacteria
- frequency of colour in peppered moths
How can pollution be measured?
- by using direct methods or by using indicator species
Why is conservation important?
- to protect our food supply
- to prevent damage to food chains
- to protect organisms from medical uses
- to protect habitats for people to visit
What does the recycling of nitrogen involve?
- the action of four types of bacteria
What does heat loss from organisms depend on?
- their surface area or volume
Who came up with the theory about adaptation and natural selection?
- Charles Darwin
What will help to conserve habitats and organisms?
- removing waste
- producing food
- supplying energy in a sustainable way
What can pyramids of biomass show?
- it can show feeding relationships
What shape does a pyramid of biomass form?
- a pyramid
What do organisms in hot, dry areas have adaptations to?
- increase heat loss
- move on sand
- cope with lack of water
What does Darwins theory of natural selection involve?
- variation
- competition
- survival of the fittest
- selective reproduction
An increase of human population has led to what?
- an increase in pollutants such as:
carbon dioxide causing global warming, sulphur dioxide causing acid rain and CFCs breaking down the ozone layer
What are the order of the organism groups?
- kingdom
- phylum
- class
- order
- family
- genus
- species
How does the binomial system work?
- there are two parts to the name, the first is genus and the second is species
- the genus part starts with a capital letter; the species part darts with a lower-case letter
What are some specific problems presented by organisms?
- bacteria do not interbreed, they reproduce asexually, so they cannot be classified into different species using the ‘fertile offspring’ idea
- mules are hybrids, produced when members of two species (a donkey and a horse) interbreed. Hybrids are infertile, so mules cannot be classed as species
What do pyramids of biomass show?
- the dry mass of loving material at each stage of a food chain
Why may pyramids of numbers and pyramids of biomass look different?
- producers are very large
- a small parasite lives on a large animal
As energy flows along a food chain some is used in growth, at each trophic level much energy is transferred into other less forms, what would this be?
- heat from respiration
- egestion
- excretion
Why does carbon need to be recycled?
- so it can become available again to other living organisms
How is carbon dioxide removed from the air?
- by photosynthesis in plants
How is carbon dioxide released into the air?
- plants and animals respiring
- soil bacteria and fungi acting as decomposers
- the burning of fossil fuels (combustion)
Which microorganisms are responsible for the recycling of nitrogen?
- decomposers are soil badgering and fungi and they convert proteins and urea into ammonia
- nitrifying bacteria convert nitrates to nitrogen gas
- nitrogen-fixing bacteria living in root nodules (or in the soil) fix nitrogen gas - this also occurs by the action of lightening
Competition can be interspecific and intraspecific, what do these mean?
- interspecific is between organisms of different species
- intraspecific is between organisms of the same species and is likely o be more significant as the organisms share more similarities and so need the same resources
Why do both predator and prey show cyclical changes?
- when there are lots of prey, more predators survive and so their numbers increase
- this means that the increase number of predators eat more prey, so prey numbers drop
- more predators starve and so their numbers drop
What is and example of mutualism?
- insects visit flowers and so transfer pollen, allowing pollination to happen. They are ‘rewarded’ by surgery nectar from the flower
- on some coral reefs ‘cleaner’ fish regularly visited by larger fish. The large fish benefit by having their parasites removed by the cleaner fish and the cleaner fish gain food
What are specialists and generalists?
- specialists are animals are very well adapted to living in their specific habitats that they would struggle to live elsewhere (ie. Polar bears)
- generalists can live in several habitats although they will lose to specialists in certain areas (ie. Rats)
