Ecology Flashcards
Patterns of dispersion
Clumped: can be the case from wolfs cooperating or mushrooms eating resources together
Uniform: socially related. Penguins/territoriality
Random: plants wind blown seeds
Commensalism
One organisms benefits, other not affected
Fundamental vs realized niche
Realized niche: set of resources a population actually uses
Fun. Niche: resources capable of using
Connell’s experiment
Had to do with barnacles in an intertidal region
Species located closer to the water, balanus, was a better competitor than cthalamus located higher; so the fundamental niche and realized niche for balanus was the same, while they were not for cthalamus
Competition is playing a role
Resource partitioning
When there are limited resources, two species utilize different ways to eat the same food
Subdividing the niche
Explains character displacement, the observation that in the same environment two species of bird, for example, develop beaks to eat food that have greater differences than the same birds who inhabit their own islands, without competition
Laws of thermodynamics/conservation
1st therm: energy cannot be created nor destroyed
2nd therm: entropy increase with exchange
Conservation of mass: matter cannot be created nor destroyed
Limiting factors
Water ecosystems: light and nutrients
Land: temp and moisture
Population symbols
r is per capita growth rate
K is carrying capacity
R=b-d
N=change in pop size=births - deaths
K-selection/ r-selection
K selection (also called density dependent selection) selects for traits sensitive to pop density
R selection (density independent selection) selects for traits that maximize reproduction
Semelparity vs. iteroparity
Semelparity: species reproduce once and die
Iteroparity: repeated reproduction
Biomes
Distribution of biomes correlated with climate
Seasons are result of earths tilt on axis
The tropics (full of rain forests) are near the equator where most solar energy hits, because air is heated then rises and releases moisture, so a rainforest is both hot and moist
Deserts are a bit higher or lower because the cooled air sinks again and traps moisture to create a hot environment
At 60 degrees, there are coniferous forests because clouds form from the risen air originating in deserts. Large trees like all the water
South/north pole at caps
Chaparral biomes have cool rainy winters with hot summers
Benthic zones are at ocean floor
Oligotrophic lakes: nutrient poor, clear
Eutrophic: nutrient rich, murky
