Chapter IV: Environments and Life Flashcards
Why is the term food web more appropriate than a food chain?
Because relationships between prey and predatory animals are rarely simple enough for a chain to accurately represent.
Which terrestrial and marine environments characteristically contain few species? Why do these environments have such low diversity?
Terrestrial: Desserts, grasslands, tundras, and glaciers
Marine: bays and lagoons (salinity variation), freshwater, deep oceans (little food) (large # of species but small populations)
Large amounts of limiting factors
How do primary producers in the ocean’s mode of life differ from those on land?
primary producers in the ocean tend to be free floating while land based producers are immobile
What can fossilized plants tell us about ancient environments?
keys to determining ancient climates
How does water depth in the ocean relate to the distribution of seafloor environments?
deeper water leads to less densely populated seafloor’s
What produces the intertropical convergence zone?
the convergence of the northern and southern trade winds
How do winds affect the ocean on a large scale?
by producing surface currents which regulate temperature
Rain forests are sometimes likened to coral reefs because both support large, diverse communities. Why are both restricted to the tropics?
the large amount of energy necessary as well the moisture/temperature requirements
What conditions create monsoons?
faster cooling of land than water produces large bodies of cold dense air over sea that then push seaward in winter monsoons vice versa for summer; difference in heat capacity
What kinds of salinities characterize lagoons along the margin of the ocean?
brackish and hypersalines
How do limiting factors affect the composition of communities they affect?
The more limiting factors there are the less diverse communities will be.
What factors determine ecological niches of species?
availability of food; chemical/physical conditions; presence of other species that will become predators or competitors;
Community
Groups of coexisting species that form food webs.
Ecosystems
Communities and the environments they occupy
What factors govern a species’ geographic distribution on land?
physical barriers to dispersal; environmental temperature change;
What factors govern a species’ geographic distribution in water?
Salinity; Temperature; Abundance of Food
biota
flora and fauna living together
cycads
ancient group of plants that today grow only in tropics/subtropics.
equatorial currents
pile up on western side of major ocean basins
circumpolar current
only in southern hemisphere due to north america and eurasia preventing one from forming in the north (labrador and California current)
shelf break
edge of the continental shelf (drop to the abyssal plain)
photic zone
area where enough light penetrates to permit photosynthesis
Tidal Zones
Supratidal (very harsh/low life), intertidal (harsh, low life) and subtidal (rich with life)
Phytoplankton vs Zooplankton
both protists, zooplankton are animals (consumers) and phytoplankton are plants (producers)
Nekton
animals that move through the water by swimming
pelagic life
life that exists above the seafloor
benthic life
life that exists on the sea floor
substratum
ocean floor
Grazers/Suspension Feeders/Deposit feeders
feeding on plantlike forms; straining phytoplankton and plant debris from the water; consumption of sediment
