Ch. 4 Test Flashcards
What is a pioneer species?
Species that colonizes a previously uninhabited area
Succession that occurs after a disturbance
Secondary
What would happen to the atmosphere if we stopped cutting down so many trees?
An increase in Oxygen
When a population reaches the total amount an ecosystem can sustain, we have reached what?
Carrying capacity
One way to decrease a population of a native species would be to…
Introduce an invasive species to compete.
After primary succession begins, what kind of non-vegetative life would you expect to come first?
Small tiny insects
Producer-Primary-?
Secondary
How do invasive species hurt current populations?
They compete for resources.
Building a highway is an example of what?
Habitat fragmentation
When a pond gets covered in algae, causing the destruction of the freshwater ecosystem
Eutrophication
How is carbon dioxide released into the air?
Lots of ways including humans, animals, plants, and burning fossil fuels.
Omnivores eat
Plants and other animals
What happens to most of the energy as you move up the trophic levels?
It gets lost as heat.
How much energy gets transferred from one trophic level to another?
10%
What cycle do photosynthesis and cellular respiration play an important role in?
Carbon cycle
When two species benefit and neither is harmed
Mutualism
What is not a threat to biodiversity
Species preservation
What is not a form of density-dependent population control?
Habitat destruction
What is the best way to preserve water if we were to go into a major drought?
Regulate how much water people and businesses can use
What is a RENEWABLE RESOURCE?
Resources that can come back within a short amount of time
What is the biggest difference between a grassland biome and a forest biome?
Rainfall
Which of the following is used to describe an animal’s characteristics that increase the animal’s chances of survival?
Adaption
Where do the berries get their energy from?
The sun
The arrows in a food chain and food web represent
Where the energy goes
A consumer that only eats plants
Herbivore
An organism that gets energy by feeding on dead materials and waste.
Decomposer
A representation of many overlapping food chains in an ecosystem; includes the flow of energy from the Sun through producers to consumers and decomposers through multiple pathways
Food web
The energy that powers all living things in an ecosystem comes from
The sun
An organism that gets its energy by feeding on other organisms
Consumer
Grass is a producer because…
it makes its own energy from photosynthesis
a representation of the flow of energy from the Sun through producers to consumers and decomposers in an ecosystem
Food chain
What is an example of a nonliving part of an ecosystem?
Water
What is an example of an omnivore?
Bear
When a chemical builds up into the highest trophic level, for example, DDT in bald eagles.
Biomagnification
A trophic level is…
based on an organism’s source of energy
The process of changing nitrogen gas from the air into nitrate compounds that plants can use.
Nitrogen fixation
During what process do bacteria convert nitrates back into nitrogen gas by removing the oxygen atoms?
Denitrification
Ways that species compete
Intraspecific competition - when organisms in the same population compete with each other
Interspecific competition - when populations of different species compete with each other.
Energy flow through ecosystems
Energy flows through an ecosystem in one direction- from the sun or inorganic molecules to producers and then to consumers. When organisms eat other organisms, energy is passed along.
Natural cycles that characterize organisms
Decomposers –> third trophic level –> second trophic level –> first trophic level
The use of color to blend into the background (often being able to change their color to match their surroundings)
Cryptic coloration
Disruptive coloration helps…
animals blend into their surroundings
When an animal’s (typically sea creatures like fish and whales) dorsal surfaces are darker, and their ventral surfaces are lighter so it helps them blend in.
Countershading
Physical adaption
A body part or shape that helps an animal survive in its environment.
When animals have distinctive patterns, contrasting colors, or bright colors. They may also be venomous, have sharp spines and stingers, or have foul odors to protect themselves from predators.
Warning coloration
Batesian mimicry
When two or more animals are similar but only one of them is dangerous to predators.
Mullerian mimicry
When two or more animals are similar and both are dangerous to predators.
An innate behavior that is a movement toward or away from a stimulus.
Taxis
Estivation
A dormant state that helps animals survive a lack of resources in hot, dry weather.
A kind of learned behavior where an animal learns to stop responding to a particular stimulus over time.
Habituation
A kind of learned behavior where organisms learn to associate one stimulus with another, unrelated one.
Classical conditioning
This learned behavior occurs when an animal remembers the outcome of past events and modifies future behavior accordingly.
Operant conditioning
The widespread removal or clear-cutting of trees from an area
Deforestation
(A learned behavior) Imprinting occurs when…
there is a small window of time for an organism to learn a behavior, often when it is first born
Methods that help keep the land productive
Sustainable agriculture
When burning fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Global warming
Greenhouse gases
- They trap the heat that is produced from the energy of the sun
- Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouses gases in the atmosphere
What are the solid particles and gases that can harm ecosystems get into Earth’s air?
Pollutants
The process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at high pressure to break apart shale rocks and release natural gas resources.
Fracking
