Ecology 1 Flashcards
What is Ecology?
- Ecology is the study of living organisms and how they interact with each other and the environment.
What two factors is an environment made of?
- Biotic Factors - the living things within an ecosystem eg. plants and animals
- Abiotic Factors - the non-living things within an environment eg. water, air, temperature
What is an organism?
- an organism is any unicellular or multicellular form that exhibits all the characteristics of life.
What is a Population?
- a group of organisms of the same species that live together in the same area.
What is a Community?
- a group of different populations living together in the same area and are interdependent.
What is an Ecosystem?
- an ecosystem is a community of living organisms together with their non-living environment.
What are the different types of Ecosystems?
Terrestrial Ecosystems:
- Desert
- Tundra
- Grassland
- Rainforest
Aquatic Ecosystems:
- Freshwater
- Marine
What is the Biosphere?
- the life supporting portions of the earth that include air, land, fresh and salt water. It it also known as the worldwide sum of ecosystems.
What is a habitat and niche?
- a habitat is a place in which an organism lives
- a niche is the role that the organism plays in a community
How is a niche determined?
- a niche is determined by the limiting factors of the organism
What are the different types of Limiting Factors?
- Amount of water
- Amount of food
- Availability of mates
- Temperature
- Amount of space
How can the relationship between organisms be?
- casual
- close
- harmful
- beneficial
What kind of relationships are there?
- competition
- parasite and the host
- predator and the prey
- feeding relationships
- mutualistic relationships
What is a competition?
- a competition is when two or more organisms are in need of the same thing especially when they are in short supply
What are the two types of competitions?
Intraspecific Competitions - competition between organisms of the same species
Interspecific Competitions - competition between organisms of different species
How do niches reduce competition?
- when two species have different niches, they are less likely to compete for the same resources
Why are competitions helpful?
- competitions are helpful because they help to reduce or stabilize a population.
What is a predator?
- a predator is any organism that hunts down another organism known as its prey for food
What are ways that a prey protects itself?
- camouflage
- warning signals
- defensive weapons and behaviours
- highly developed senses
What are the types of Feeding Relationships?
- Producer - Consumer
- Predator - Prey
- Parasite - Host
What are Producers?
- autotrophs (they make their own food) they trap the energy from the sun to make food by photosynthesis
What are Consumers?
- heterotrophs (can’t make their own food)
- there are primary, secondary and tertiary consumers
- there are herbivores, carnivores and omnivores
What do the different consumers eat?
Primary - eat plants ( herbivores)
Secondary and Tertiary - prey animals (carnivores)
Predator - hunt animals for food
Scavengers - feed on dead animals
Decomposers - break down the complex compounds of dead/decaying organisms so that they can be absorbed
What is Symbiosis?
- symbiosis is two species living together
What are the 3 types of Symbiosis?
Commensalism - when one species benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped.
eg. orchids on a tree, polar bears and cyanobacteria
Parasitism - when one species benefits (parasite) and the other is harmed (host)
eg. tapeworms, leeches, ticks
Endoparasites - live inside the host
Ectoparasites - live outside on the host
Mutualism - when both species benefit from the relationship
eg. cleaning birds on a rhino, cattle egret on a cow
What is an Environment?
- the surroundings which an organism interacts with.
What is a Trophic Level?
- the position of an organism in a food chain, food web or pyramid
What is a Food Chain?
- the flow of energy between organisms in an ecosystem
What is a Food Web?
- a natural interconnection of different food chains
What is Biomass?
- the amount of organic matter comprising of a group of organisms in a habitat. It is built up energy from the sun. It is often measured as the dry mass of biological material in grams
What happens as you move up the food chain?
- as you move up the food chain, energy and bio mass decrease because organisms use 90% of there energy so only 10% is passed on
What is a Biomass Chart?
- a chart that shows the amount of biomass at each trophic level in a food chain. As the pyramid reaches the top, the biomass decreases.
What is a Pyramid of Numbers?
- when the organisms of a chain are counted, a pyramid of numbers is drawn
What is a Pyramid of Energy?
- this shows the amount of energy stored in the biomass of organisms in a food chain.
- this can be estimated by burning samples of the organisms and measuring the amount of heat released
- pyramids of energy show that the producers store the most amount of energy and it decreases as you go up the pyramid.
What is Biological Magnification?
- while energy decreases in food chains, toxin increases in potency
eg: DDT and Bald Eagles
What do Ecological Pyramids show?
- the number, biomass and energy at each trophic level in an ecosystem
