Ecology Flashcards
What is ecology?
The study of living things and their environment.
What are biotic factors? Give examples.
Living parts of the environment, e.g. plants, animals, micro- organisms
What are abiotic factors? Give examples.
Non- living parts of the environment, e.g. air, water, wind, sunlight, soil, landforms, etc.
What is the path that the atoms take in the environment called?
cycle
Give examples of cycles
- Water cycle
- Carbon- oxygen cycle (look at diagram)
- Nitrogen cycle
What are feral organisms? Give examples.
Introduced organisms that have gone wild, e.g. weeds (Patterson’s Curse), European carp, rabbits, feral cats, pigs.
What can feral animals do to the environment and who do they compete with?
They damage the environment and compete with native species.
What company guards against the introduction to new pests into Australia?
Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS)
Why do feral organisms frequently do well in the environment?
They are introduced without their natural enemies which keep their numbers in check in the countries from which they had been introduced.
What is the biological control? Give examples of some.
Using a living species to control the number of pest species, e.g. Myxoma virus and Calici Virus to control rabbit numbers.
What are pesticides?
Chemicals that kill pests
What have pesticides allowed?
Increase in food production, reduced loss of food in storage and reduced the amount of disease and suffering diseases cause.
What is biodiversity/ what does it refer to?
The variety of life that exists in an ecosystem.
Why is maintaining biodiversity important?
Because living species depend on each other in an ecosystem, e.g. for food, and if one species becomes extinct, it will have an effect on other species.
What is the name given to species that are close to extinction?
Endangered
