Ecology: Relationships and Energy Flow Flashcards
Ecology
the study of living things in their environment
Biodiversity
A measure of all the plant 🌱 and animal 🦔 species found in an area
Population
A group of organisms of the same species living in one particular area.
🐕 🐕 🐕
Community
Populations of many different species living together in a particular area.
🐕 🐕 🐈⬛ 🐈⬛ 🐄 🐄 🐓 🐓
Habitat
The area in which a community lives. 🏙️
Ecosystem
An area where a community of organisms live and are affected by a range of environmental factors
What can the surroundings be described as in more detail?
The environment
The environment
All the factors that act on an organism or population
How many groups is the environment divided into?
2 groups
What are the groups the environment is divided into?
- non living (abiotic factors)
- living (biotic factors)
Examples of abiotic factors
- temperature 🌡️
- humidity 💦
- light intensity 💡
- pH 🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣
E.g.s of biotic factors
- effect of predator on prey 🐻 🐟
- when 2 species compete for food 🐆 🦁 = 🦓
What is taken to record the plants present in an area?
A sample
Why is a sample taken?
Impossible to count every plant in an area
Quadrat
Square frame used in sampling
Size of quadrat
1 m side = area 1m2
Most important thing about sampling
Method should produce reliable results
How the method produces reliable results in sampling
As large as possible
What does it mean to take a sample representative of the habitat?
To take as many as possible
What does it mean to take a reliable sample?
Lots of repeats to make an average for area
What does it mean to take a random sample?
Random coordinates and habitat divided into grid to avoid bias
The 3Rs of sampling
- representative
- reliable
- random
Percentage cover
percentage of the quadrat covered by a particular type of plant.
Percentage cover use
Investigate plant distribution 🪴
Pyramid of numbers
No of organisms at each trophic level of a food chain
Pyramid of biomass
Mass of living tissue (biomass) at each trophic level of a food chain
