Chapter 18 Flashcards
Compare the biosphere’s four levels of ecology within the context of abiotic and biotic factors. Know your terms organism, population, community, ecosystem, biosphere, abiotic and biotic.
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Define a community, an ecological niche, and the competitive exclusion principle, noting examples of each
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Distinguish between parasitic and mutualistic relationships and describe examples of each.
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Be able to describe and compare and contrast interactions within communities: competition (including competitive exclusion principle and partitioning of resources), mutualism, predation, herbivory, and parasites/pathogens.
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Define and list examples of producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, quaternary consumers, scavengers, detritivores, and decomposers in an ecosystem.
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Distinguish between a food chain and a food web.
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Describe the function of a keystone species in a community. Explain how predation can help maintain species diversity.
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Describe the types and effects of disturbances in communities.
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Distinguish between primary and secondary succession.
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Describe the composition of the levels of an energy pyramid. Explain why energy pyramids usually do not have more than five levels.
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Explain why it takes about the same amount of photosynthetic productivity to produce 10 kilograms of corn as 1 kilogram of bacon. In other words, understand the implications of the 10% rule on the human population.
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Understand the concept of Conservation of Energy and concept of Entropy. Note: Chapter 20 assumes you know this. You will need to read the section on energy in Chapter 5 – p. 76-78. Understand how these energy laws related to the concept of a energy pyramid.
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Human impact on communities: what happens when we introduce non-native species? Why do non-native species have this effect? What are some examples of non-native species that have been introduced?
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