Ecology Flashcards
What is ecology?
Study of living organisms, their interactions with eachother and their abiotic environment
What is the environment?
External factors that influence an organism
What is the biosphere and what does it include?
Part of the earth inhabited by living organisms
What is an ecosystem?
It’s a community of organisms and their abiotic environment
What is the relation between the biosphere and ecosystems?
Biosphere consists of many large ecosystems
Give an example of an ecosystem and a feature and a location
Desert, Low rainfall, Sahara desert
Hedgerow, Warm summer, plentiful rain, Ireland
Marine, salt water, oceans
What is a habitat?
Is the place where an organism lives and to which it is adapted
What does the study of a local habitat give us?
Representation of how ecosystem works
What is a population?
Group of individuals of the same species living and breeding in the same habitat
What is a community?
Population of different species living and interacting with each other in the same habitat
What are abiotic factors?
Non living factors
Example and effect of abiotic factor
Aspect - direction surface faces North facing - cooler South facing - warmer More plants grow on south facing Altitude - height above sea level Higher - cooler, wetter, windier Trees cannot live here
What are biotic factors?
Living factors
Give examples and effects of biotic factors
Food - more food available, greater number. Number of berries affects number of blackbirds
Competition - right for scarce resources such as food, space, mates
Rabbits compete with eachother for food
Predation - reduce numbers of prey, foxes and rabbits
Humans - positive or negative affect
Positive - new parks form new environment
Negative - pollution
What are climatic factors and give examples
Refer to weather over a long period of time
Temperature - affects rate of reactions in living things,
Higher - rapid plant growth
Lower - hibernation
Rainfall - water is essential for life, tropical rain forests high and regular rainfall
Light intensity - affects rate of photosynthesis, trees grow tall to get more light
What are edaphic factors and give examples
Relate to soil
Soil PH - adapted to specific PH values
Acid soils - bogs
Neutral soils - most plants
Alkaline soils -bee orchid
Water content - absorbed by roots and are needed by plants for transpiration and photosynthesis
Air content - provides oxygen - lack of oxygen in soil prevents organism growth
Why is temperature not important in an aquatic environment?
It doesn’t vary so rapidly
Special factors in aquatic environments
Light - water can enter free which means plants are limited to upper layers of water
Currents - cause plants to be carried away, animals are adapted
Wave action - waves create currents and also cause damage to organisms. Animals are protected by shells
Salt content - organisms are adapted to either fresh water or salt water, if external solution is unsustainable, they have problems with osmoregulation
Oxygen concentration - it’s lower in water than in air, must be able to extract oxygen for water [gills]
What are producers and give an example
They are organisms that makes its own food
plant
Where is energy stored in plants?
Chemical bonds in eg, Glucose and starch
What percentage of energy is passed on to other organism?
10%
What are consumers
Organisms that take in food from another organism
What are primary consumers?
feed on producers [include herbivores and decomposers]
What are secondary consumers?
Animals that feed on primary consumers
[carnivores and scavengers]
What are scavengers?
Feed on animals killed by other sources
What are tertiary consumers?
They feed on secondary consumers and no other organism feeds on them.
What is a food chain?
It’s a sequence of organisms in which one is eaten by the next member in the chain
What is a detritus food chain?
Where the chain begins with dead organic matter
Give an example of a detritus food chain
Fallen leaves - earthworms - blackbird - hawk
Grassland example of food chain
Buttercup - Caterpillar - blackbird - Fox
Producer - primary consumer - secondary consumer - tertiary consumer
What is a trophic level?
Position of a species in a food chain
Trophic level
Producers - 1st trophic level
Primary consumers - 2nd trophic level
What can take food from each trophic level?
Scavengers, decomposers or detritus feeders
Where does energy go?
10% passed on to next trophic level, 90% is lost in waste and heat loss
What limits the length of the food chain?
Amount of energy passing along a food chain decreases from one trophic level to the next
What is a food web?
It consists of two or more interlinked food chains
[show flow of energy]
What is a pyramid of numbers
Diagram that represents the number of organisms at each trophic level in a food chain
Why does great pyramid invert as you go up?
Due to high energy loss at each trophic level and the fact that organisms usually increase in size the further up the food chain
What is a niche?
It’s the functional role an organism plays in an ecosystem
What does an organisms niche include?
What it eats, what it is eaten by and how it interacts with other organisms and abiotic environment
Why can’t two species with identical niches survive long in same habitat?
They would both compete in some way Eg, swallows, thrushes and blackbirds Occupy different niches Swallow - aerial insects Thrush - ground insects Blackbirds - insects from trees but mostly fruit and worms
What is nutrient recycling?
It’s the way in which elements are exchanged between living and non living components of an ecosystem
Roles of organisms in the carbon cycle
Plants
Animals
Micro-organisms
Role of plants in carbon cycle
Remove carbon from environment in photosynthesis and return it in respiration
Role of animals in carbon cycle
Obtain carbon by eating plants and release carbon in respiration
Role of micro organisms in carbon cycle?
Return carbon to the environment when they decompose dead plants and animals
What is global warming?
Caused by Concentration of carbon dioxide in atmosphere rising dude to increased combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation
Carbon dioxide is a green house gas. What does this mean
It allows heat radiation from the sun to pass into earths atmosphere, but does not allow reflected heat rays back out
Effects of global warming
Sea levels may rise due to ice melting and expansion of hot water = flooding
Weather patterns may alter = affect wildlife and agriculture