Ecology Test 1 Chapter 25

Question 1

What is a food chain?

Answer 1

a linear depiction of energy flow with each organism feeding on and deriving energy from the preceding organism

Question 2

What is a trophic level?

Answer 2

each feeding level in the chain

Question 3

What are autotrophs and some examples of it?

Answer 3

they harvest light or chemical energy and store that energy in carbon compounds; plants, algae, and photosynthetic prokaryotes use sunlight for this process

Question 4

What are primary producers?

Answer 4

form the base of the food chain, they produce the energy rich tissue upon which nearly all other organisms depend

Question 5

What are heterotrophs?

Answer 5

organisms in trophic level above the primary producers, they receive their nutrition by eating other organisms

Question 6

What are primary consumers?

Answer 6

organisms that obtain their food by consuming primary producers; many animals, most protist, and some plants

Question 7

What are herbivores?

Answer 7

Organisms that eat plants and algae; some primary consumers like those that ear chemosynthetic organisms around black smokers are not herbivores

Question 8

What are secondary consumers/carnivores?

Answer 8

Organisms that eat primary consumers that feed on the tissues of other organisms

Question 9

What are tertiary consumers?

Answer 9

Organisms that feed on secondary consumers

Question 10

What is detritus?

Answer 10

unconsumed plants die and decompose in place, this material along with animal waste products and remains

Question 11

What are detritivores?

Answer 11

Consumers that get their energy from detritus break down organisms and fecal matter from all trophic levels

Question 12

What is a food web?

Answer 12

draw relationships between these plants and animals not as a simple chain but more elaborate interwoven

Question 13

What is a connectedness webs?

Answer 13

all known links are drawn and equal importance is attached to each link

Question 14

What is an energy web?

Answer 14

where interaction strengths based on quantities of food consumed are indicated by the thickness of connecting links

Question 15

What is a functional web?

Answer 15

One that identifies the most important feeding relationships

Question 16

3 types of food webs

Answer 16

connectedness, energy, and functional food webs

Question 17

What is trophic-level transfer efficiency?

Answer 17

the final measure of efficiency of consumers as energy transformers which is the amount of energy at one trophic level that is acquired by the trophic level above and incorporated into biomass

Question 18

What is the pyramid of numbers ?

Answer 18

the number of individuals decreases at each trophic level, with a large number of individuals at the base and fewer individuals at the top

Question 19

What is a pyramid of biomass?

Answer 19

one way to reconcile such exceptions is to weigh the organisms in each trophic level, usually measured as dry biomass

Question 20

What is a standing crop?

Answer 20

the total biomass in an ecosystem at any one point in time, processes large amounts of energy

Question 21

What is the pyramid of energy?

Answer 21

shows energy production rather than standing crop, is never inverted

Question 22

What is linkage density?

Answer 22

another measure of food web complexity which is the number of links per species

Question 23

What is a keystone species?

Answer 23

a species within a community that has a role out of proportion to its abundance

Question 24

What is a dominant species?

Answer 24

one that has a large effect in a community because of its abundance or large biomass

Question 25

What are umbrella species?

Answer 25

species whose habitat requirements are so large that protecting them would protect many other species existing in the same food web or habitat

Question 26

What is a flagship species?

Answer 26

a single large or instantly recognizable species

Question 27

Which of these organisms is a heterotroph?
Diatom, moss oak tree, corn plant, fish

Answer 27

Moss

Question 28

Lions normally feed at which trophic level?

Answer 28

2

Question 29

If there are 20 species in a food web, the potential number of links is?

Answer 29

190

Question 30

If there are 20 species and 20 links in a food web the actual connectance is?

Answer 30

0.026

Question 31

If there are 20 species and 40 links in a food web the linkage density?

Answer 31

20

Question 32

Chemoautotrophic bacteria are?

Answer 32

Tertiary consumers

Question 33

A species that has an effect out of all proportions to its commonness is called a?

Answer 33

Umbrella species

Question 34

If production at trophic level n is 50 kcal/m^2 and production at trophic level n - 1 400 kcal/m^2 then trophic level transfer efficiency is?

Answer 34

20%

Question 35

Which of the following organisms is not a keystone species?

Answer 35

Distemper virus

Question 36

Polar bears are often though of as a(n) _______ species?

Answer 36

Invasive