Chapter 15-Intoduction to Ecology Flashcards
What is the term that refers to an organism’s environment or home?
Habitat
The living things of the habitat such as animals, plants, fungi, and microbes are called:
Biotic factors
What are the non-living things of the habitat called?
Abiotic factors
What is the relatively thin layer of the earth’s surface in which life exists called?
Biosphere
Each part of the world has its own characteristic vegetation and animal life; these large geographic regions are called:
Biomes
A biome is identified by its ________________, which is the species of plants that dominate the region, and also by the distinctive animal species that dwell there.
Climax vegetation
Within each biome you would find many individual, smaller natural areas, each with its own specific environmental conditions and living organisms. These are called:
Ecosystems
What are the two general categories of the ecosystem?
Aquatic
Terrestrial
What is a group of organisms of the same species living in the same ecosystem?
Population
A population may be divided into what individual living things that are the smallest living units of the biosphere?
Organisms
What is the study of how living things interact with one another and with their physical environment?
Ecology
What is the number and variety of species living within an ecosystem?
Biodiversity
What is the ability of the ecosystem to support organisms?
Carrying capacity
What are some of the main abiotic factors?
Radiation Temperature Water Atmosphere Wind Soil
Within an organism’s tolerance range for temperature or for another factor is an ideal range called the _____________. In this range, the creature does not only survive, but thrive.
Optimum range
Any factor outside an organism’s tolerance range becomes a ________________ and may threaten survival.
Limiting factor
What are organisms which make their own food using an inorganic energy source and are also called autotrophs?
Producers
What autotrophs such as green plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, obtain energy from sunlight?
Photoautotrophs
What are all other organisms in an ecosystem that are not producers, and also called heterotrophs?
Consumers
What are consumers that feed on plants?
Herbivores
What are consumers that feed on other animals?
Carnivores
What are consumers which feed on both plants and animals called?
Omnivores
What are bacteria and fungi that feed on detritus by secreting enzymes that break it down into simpler molecules?
Decomposers
What, like decomposers, also feed on detritus, but help to break it down into smaller pieces and speed up the process of decay?
Detritivores
What is each organism in the process of an ecosystem, that is a classification which describes its feeding relationship to other organisms in its ecosystem?
Trophic level
What is very often the carnivore at the top of the food chain?
Top carnivore
What are the animals that eat plants directly called?
Primary consumers
What are the animals at the third trophic level, that eat herbivores?
Secondary consumers
What is a model used by ecologists to show the nutritional relationships among organisms in an ecosystem?
Food chain
What is a model used by ecologists to show all, possible feeding relationships at each trophic level?
Food web
Ecologists use the term _____________ to refer to the function or “occupation” of a living thing.
Niche
What kind of pyramid shows the energy transferred from one trophic level to the next?
Energy pyramid
What kind of pyramid represents the total mass of living matter per unit area at each trophic level?
Biomass level
What is the total mass of living matter per unit area?
Biomass
What kind of pyramid represents the number of organisms at each trophic level and shows that population size usually decreases at each higher trophic level?
Number pyramid
Many organisms live in close association with one another in a type of relationship known as _______________ (“living together”).
Symbiosis
What is a relationship between organisms in which both organisms benefit?
Mutualism
What is a relationship between two organisms in which one, called the parasite, benefits while the other, called the host, is harmed?
Parasitism
What is a relationship in which one organism benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped?
Commensalism
What involves a predator-prey relationship where on organism, the predator, hunts, kills, and eats another, the prey?
Predation
What is a relationship between organisms in which two organisms compete for the same limited resources such as food, water, and shelter?
Competition
What is a relationship between organisms in which one organism inhibits another?
Amensalism
What is a relationship between organisms in which organisms share only an indirect relationship?
Neutralism
What is a relationship between organisms in which grazing animals feed on plants by cropping portions of the plant without killing it?
Herbivory
What is the cycle that is also known as nutrient cycles, and is used to recycle minerals and other nutrients in the environment?
Biogeochemical cycles
What is the cycle in which water moves from the soil and from the water surfaces of the earth, through the atmosphere, and then back to the earth again?
Hydrologic cycle
What are the three major processes that continuously cycle water between the earth and the atmosphere?
Evaporation
Condensation
Precipitation
What are the cycles that include the carbon-oxygen cycle and the nitrogen cycle, and involve nutrients found mainly in gaseous form in the atmosphere?
Atmospheric cycles
Atmospheric cycles include the:
Carbon-oxygen cycle
Nitrogen cycle
What cycles involve nutrients found in the soil and rocks of the earth’s surface?
Sedimentary cycles
What is one of the main sedimentary cycles, moves from the soil to producers and then to consumers, and returns to the soil when dead plants and animals are decomposed by the action of detritivores and decomposers?
Phosphorus cycle
What term is often used to refer to the combination of a region’s climax vegetation and its animal populations?
Climax community
What kind of biome has short winter days, long, harsh winters, with freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and high winds, and long summer winds, and a variety of colorful mosses, lichens, grasses, and dwarf shrubs?
Arctic tundra
What was a permanently frozen layer of soil found 2 to 3 feet below the surface, does not allow roots and water to penetrate deeply into the soil?
Permafrost
What kind of tundra is at high mountain altitudes, which has vegetation and climatic conditions similar to those of the Arctic tundra, although the soil has better drainage and has no permafrost?
Alpine tundra
What kind of biome has a harsh climate with long winters and heavy snowfalls, and summers are long and permafrost is rare, conifers are the dominant vegetation, and natural forest fires are common during the summer, lots of migratory birds spend their summers here, and taiga animals are particularly large?
Norther coniferous forest
What kind of biome has seasons that are well-defined, with its cold winters and hot summers, and is dominated with deciduous trees, and spring flowers are particularly beautiful?
Temperate deciduous forest
What is the type of tree that dominates the temperate deciduous forest, that loses its leaves completely each year?
Deciduous
What kind of biome has grasses as the dominant plants, where fire is important because it recycles nutrients into the soil?
Grassland
What us a very special form of grasslands that contain some of the fastest and fiercest predators in the world, and trees are found widely distributed here, grasses grow rapidly, providing food among many animals?
Savanna
What kind of biome is in areas where more water is lost through evaporation than is gained from rain, is the hottest and driest biome in the world, and has annual and perennial plants?
Deserts
What kind of biome is a hot and humid region that receives abundant rain and have a year-round growing season, and more than half of the world’s species of plants and animals are found?
Tropical rain forest
What are the biomes that are larger than terrestrial biomes and show great variations in temperature, dissolved nutrients, gases, and sunlight penetration?
Aquatic biomes
What are the two major divisions of the aquatic biome?
Freshwater ecosystem
Marine ecosystem
What kind of ecosystem is classified according to whether the waters are flowing or standing, and has wetland areas?
Freshwater ecosystems
What kind of ecosystem is associated with the ocean, starting from the shore, and moving towards the open ocean, and there are two different types of this ecosystem?
Marine ecosystem
What are the two types of marine ecosystems?
Estuary
Coral reef
What kind if marine ecosystem occurs where nutrient-rich freshwater from rivers and streams meets and mixes with sea water?
Estuary
What are the three ecological zones of the ocean?
Intertidal
Neritic
Oceanic
What kind of ecological zones are also called littoral zones, and are the areas located between the highest and lowest tides along the coast line?
Intertidal zones
What kind of ecological zones are also called costal zones, and are the regions that extend past the intertidal zone until you reach the edge of the continental shelf, and is the home to the coral reef ecosystem and supports most of the world’s commercial fish industry?
Neritic zones
What kind of ecological zones extend from the continental shelves into the open ocean?
Oceanic zones
What are the first organisms that colonize a disturbed ecosystem, and these plants and animals enrich the soil and prepare the way for other species to come in and repopulate the area?
Pioneer species
What is the series of changes called that may take months, years, decades, or even centuries begins to take place, and are defined as the replacement of early pioneer species by later species in an orderly progression until the climax community is established?
Ecological succession
What kind of succession starts with barren ground, similar to what you observe after a volcanic eruption or in sand dunes?
Primary succession
What kind of succession starts with ready soil and pioneer species, as in an abandoned field or a burned forest, and this type of succession occurs more rapidly because some organisms already inhabit the area?
Secondary succession
