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Biology 1010 > Chapters 18-20 - Ecology > Flashcards

Chapters 18-20 - Ecology Flashcards

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1
Q

What is ecology?

A

the study of interactions between organisms and their living and nonliving environment

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2
Q

What is abiotic?

A

nonliving components of the environment (sun, nutrients, cycles, heat, energy)

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3
Q

What is biotic?

A

living components of the environment (producers, consumers, decomposers)

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4
Q

Examples of abiotic factors

A
  • solar energy (timing, intensity)
  • climate (rain, wind, temperature)
  • water (availability in ecosystem)
  • topography (altitude, slope, aspect)
  • oxygen availability
  • soil factors (pH, nutrients, water content)
  • pollu0on (carbon, heavy metals, plastics)
  • catastrophes (flood, fire, wind)
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5
Q

What are examples of biotic factors?

A
  • food (type, availability)
  • competitors (for food, space, mating)
  • predators (herbivore or carnivore)
  • disease organisms (bacteria, parasites)
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6
Q

What are different types of population distributions?

A
  1. random (forest ferns releasing spores into atmosphere)
  2. clumped (schools of fish –> avoid predation)
  3. uniform (nesting penguins compete for space)
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7
Q

Moose population on Isle Royale

A

1929-1950 - Limited food availability regulated moose population
1950 - New predator, wolves, joined the community, study begins in 1959 2014 – Moose populations dwindling severely

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8
Q

What are ecological measures in an ecosystem?

A

population distribution patterns, size, and growth rate

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9
Q

What is growth rate? What is normal in nature?

A

growth rate = death rate (birth rate - death rate)

-logistic growth (starts rapidly then levels off)

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10
Q

What is carrying capacity?

A

the number of individuals an ecosystem can support with it’s resources

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11
Q

What are density dependent factors?

A

influence population size and growth depending on the number and crowding of individuals in a population (ex. food, water, predators, etc –> biotic and abiotic)

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12
Q

What are density independent factors?

A

influences on population no matter it’s size (ex. catastrophe, climate –> mostly abiotic)

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13
Q

What is a community?

A

a group of interacting populations of different species living together in the same area (all biotic elements)

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14
Q

What is a keystone species?

A

may not be the most abundant species, but are essential for maintaining a community (ex. beaver builds dams in streams to create ponds/lakes)

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15
Q

What is a niche?

A

the space, environmental conditions, and resources that a species needs in order to survive and reproduce

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16
Q

What are the interactions between organisms in a community?

A
  1. competition: between organisms for resources
  2. predation: how organism derives energy
  3. symbioses: close relationships that affect species
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17
Q

What is intraspecific competition?

A

competition within one species

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18
Q

What is interspecific competition?

A

competition between different species

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19
Q

What causes competition in a community?

A

overlapping niches –> fighting for resources

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20
Q

What is the competition exclusion principal?

A

when two species compete for resources in an identical inches, one is inevitably driven to extinction

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21
Q

What is resource partitioning?

A

finding a competitive balance in order to divide resources

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22
Q

What is ecological succession?

A

change in species structure in a community over time, driven by the impact of the species themselves on the environment
–> occurs during occupation of new habitat or following a severe disturbance

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23
Q

What are the two main ecological classes of life?

A
  1. Producer: autotrophs that obtain energy from sun

2. Consumer: heterotrophs that obtain energy from producers or other consumers

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24
Q

What are the types of consumers?

A
  1. herbivores: consume plants
  2. carnivores: consume animals
  3. omnivores: consume plants and animals
  4. parasites: consume/live with host plan/animal
  5. detritivores (decomposers): feed on nonliving organic material (*not a predator since they derive energy from dead organisms)
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25
Q

What are predators?

A

organisms that feed on other living organisms

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26
Q

Energy Pyramids

A
  • pass on 5-10% of energy to next level
  • heat released
  • energy in biomass decreases as you go up the pyramid
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27
Q

A symbiotic relationship can be…

A
  • essential for one or both organisms to survive

- not essential for survival, but helps

28
Q

Types of symbiotic relationships

A
  1. mutualism: both benefit
  2. parasitism- one benefits, one harmed
  3. commensalism- one benefits, one (nearly) neutral
29
Q

Human population growing exponentially because…

A
  • mechanism of agriculture
  • disease control
  • mass sanitation
  • living in more extreme environments
30
Q

What is the current worldwide population growth rate?

A
  • 90 million per year
  • 9 billion by 2050
  • -> control this growth by educating women and increasing their quality of life so that they don’t have as many children
31
Q

What natural resources do humans use?

A
  1. energy (solar, fossil fuels, natural gas)
  2. water (fresh for consumption and salt for living habitat)
  3. oxygen (for cellular respiration, provided by photo synthesizers)
  4. land and water area (for agriculture, grazing, forests, habitats for species that provide food for humans)
32
Q

What is Earth’s carrying capacity?

A

between 7 and 13 billion

33
Q

What are renewable resources?

A

resources that cycle back into the system

–> solar energy, air, water, soil/plants

34
Q

What are nonrenewable resources?

A

resources that are not replaced over lifetimes

–> fossil fuels, oil, natural gas, metal, salt, iron

35
Q

What is an ecological footprint?

A

measure of how much land/water area is required to supply all resources used and wastes absorbed

36
Q

Earth’s biocapacity

A

can’t always keep up with human demands –> we use more resources than the Earth can supply

37
Q

Water

A
  • 70% of earth’s surface
  • 97% saltwater, 3% fresh water
  • only 1% of all water is available for consumption
38
Q

Water as a renewable resource

A
  • solar energy moves water into atmosphere (evaporation)
  • gravit returns water to oceans, lakes, aquifers (precipitation and flow)
  • -> renewable resource only if rate of water withdrawal is less than rate of replacement
39
Q

Water usage

A
  • 90% used by agriculture

- global water usage has increased 9-fold since 1900 due to population growth (1.5 to 7 billion)

40
Q

Increasing population’s affect on water availability

A
  • increased pop –> increased income levels –> increased demand for water-intensive products (meat, sugar, cotton)
  • over-abstraction of water –> lakes running dry/endangered freshwater species
  • changes in precipitation because of climate change
41
Q

What is biodiversity?

A

–>measure of the ability of life to survive environmental change
genetic diversity in life forms that has built up over billions of years of evolution cannot be replaced/reproduced

42
Q

What is genetic diversity?

A

variety within one species’ gene pool

43
Q

What is species diversity?

A

of species in an ecosystem

44
Q

What is ecosystem diversity?

A

and variety of ecosystems

45
Q

What is the greatest threat to biodiversity?

A

habitat loss due to fragmentation, degradation, and climate change

Examples:
– conversion of land to cropland
– expansion of human development and roads
– unsustainable harves,ng of existing species for food
– climate change
– pollution

46
Q

What is sustainability?

A

use of earth’s natural resources in a way that will not permanently destroy/deplete them = living within limits of earth’s biocapacity

47
Q

Three examples of natural resource use by humans

A

Industrialization = Climate change
Increased population, increase of agriculture = Depletion of fresh water stores
Natural habitat loss due to human needs = Biodiversity loss

48
Q

Two basic principals of ecology

A
  1. Energy Flows: energy is constantly arriving from the sun, passing through living organisms, and ultimately leaving as heat
  2. Matter Cycles: matter cycles between living and non-living systems, none enters and none leaves
49
Q

What is a biome?

A

major terrestrial or aquatic life zone characterized by vegetation type or the physical environment

50
Q

What are the types of biomes?

A

aquatic: (75%)
- freshwater: less than 1% of earth, used for drinking, crop irrigation, sanitation, and industry (ex. lakes, rivers, wetlands)
- marine: oceans and coral reefs
terrestrial: (25%)
- contiguous geographic areas defined by temp and moisture levels

51
Q

What are the types of terrestrial biomes?

A
  1. desert
  2. coniferous forest
  3. tundra
  4. temperature deciduous forest
  5. tropical forest
  6. grassland
  7. aquatic: marine
  8. aquatic: freshwater
52
Q

What is the desert biome?

A

characterized by extreme dryness

53
Q

What is the coniferous forest biome?

A

characterized by evergreen trees, with long and cold winters with short summers

54
Q

What is the tundra biome?

A

occurs in arctic/mountain regions, characterized by low-growing vegetation and a layer of permanent frost very close to the surface of the soil

55
Q

What is the temperature deciduous forest?

A

characterized by trees that drop their leaves in winter, winters much colder than summers

56
Q

What is the tropic forest biome?

A

characterized by warm temperatures and sufficient rainfall or support the growth of trees, may be deciduous or evergreen depending on presence/absence of a dry season

57
Q

What is the grassland biome?

A

characterized by perennial grasses and other nonwoody plants (ex. prairies)

58
Q

What is the aquatic: marine biome?

A

covers about 3/4 of the earth (ex. oceans and coral reefs)

59
Q

What is the aquatic: freshwater biome?

A

less than 1% of earth

characterized by having a low salt concentration (ex. ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands)

60
Q

What is a fundamental niche?

A

what an organism’s niche would be in the absence of competition from other species

61
Q

What is a realized niche?

A

the niche that a species actually inhabits, taking into account interspecific competition

62
Q

What is a habitat?

A

the specific environment an organism lives in, made up of biotic and abiotic factors

63
Q

What is a population?

A

a group of individuals of the same species living in a particular geographic area

64
Q

What is an ecosystem?

A

all the abiotic factors in addition to the community living in a specific area

65
Q

What is the biosphere?

A

the global ecosystem, sum of all the planet’s ecosystems

Biology 1010 (13 decks)

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