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Biology GCSE > Ecology Test October > Flashcards

Ecology Test October Flashcards

1
Q

What is a community?

A
  • a group of interdependent species of plants, animals and microorganisms
  • all of the populations of different species put together
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2
Q

What is interdependence

A
  • each species depends on another in various ways
  • one species removed, can have knock-on effect on community
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3
Q

Describe the examples of interdependence

A
  • animals dispersing seeds of plants to new places
  • using holes in trees for shelter
  • transferring pollen from one plant to another
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4
Q

What is competition?

A
  • organisms depending on the same resource and competing for it
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5
Q

What is an ecosystem?

A
  • interaction of a community of living organisms (biotic) and non living (abiotic) parts of their environment
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6
Q

Give examples of competition in plants and animals

A

plants - light, space, mineral ions from soil, water
animals - mates, food, territory

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7
Q

Describe what a stable community is like

A
  • population sizes of prey and predators rise and fall in cycles
  • predators increase = more competition for food
  • some die from lack of food = more prey
  • more prey = more predators
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8
Q

What is a population?

A
  • all the individual organisms of one species in an ecosystem
  • ecosystem contains number of populations
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9
Q

What is an abiotic factor?

A

physical condition of an environment

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10
Q

List all of the abiotic factors

A
  • light intensity
  • temperature
  • moisture level
  • soil pH + mineral content
  • wind intensity and direction
  • CO2 levels
  • O2 levels
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11
Q

How does temperature affect an ecosystem?

A
  • affects enzymes (denature?)
  • different species = adapted to survive in different temps
  • affects rate of decay
  • affects rate of transpiration
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12
Q

How does light intensity affect an ecosystem?

A
  • more photosynthesis = more food for animals
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13
Q

How do CO2 levels affect an ecosystem?

A
  • slow photosynthesis = higher CO2 levels
  • rising CO2 levels = more photosynthesis

other factors would soon limit plant growth

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14
Q

How do O2 levels affect an ecosystem?

A
  • low oxygen levels can kill aquatic animals
  • absorb O2 using body surface/ gills
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15
Q

How does moisture level, mineral content and soil pH affect an ecosystem?

A
  • moisture needed for decay in soil
  • decay releases mineral ions into soil
  • different plants adapted to different soil pHs
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16
Q

How does humidity, wind speed, and wind direction affect an ecosystem?

A
  • affects rate of transpiration in plants
  • can limit distribution of plant species
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17
Q

What are some biotic factors?

A
  • availability of food
  • new predators
  • new pathogens
  • competition
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18
Q

How does the availibility of food affect an ecosystem?

A
  • affects size of population eating it
  • too many individuals = more competition = some may not survive
  • food supply increases = population increases
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19
Q

How do new predators and pathogens affect an ecosystem?

A
  • can kill individuals and reduce size of population
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20
Q

How does competition affect an ecosystem?

A
  • 2 populations competing for same food
  • one may outperform the other
  • other population decreases until there is not enough to breed
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21
Q

What are adaptations?

A
  • features that organisms have that enable them to survive in conditions where they normally live
  • may be structural, functional, or behavioural
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22
Q

What are the three types of adaptations?

A
  • structural
  • functional
  • behavioural
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23
Q

What is a structural adaptation?

A
  • something we could see
  • shape, colour, SA to volume ratio

eg sharp claws on brown bear for catching prey

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24
Q

What is a functional adaptation?

A
  • processes going on inside organism
  • eg reproductive system/ metabolism

eg octopuses can change colour to camoflage themselves

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25
What is a behavioural adaptation?
- the way an organism behaves/ acts - eg hibernation, huddling etc
26
What is an extremophile?
- organisms that are adapted to survive in extreme environments - eg very hot/ cold/ high pressure environments | bacteria living in sea vents
27
What are producers?
- organisms with the ability to make their own food molecules - plants and algae
28
What are consumers?
- organisms that get their food molecules by eating other organisms - primary consumers eat plants or algae - secondary & tertiary consumers eat animals
29
How do you find the size of a population?
- quadrat used to mark out small area - number of individuals in quadrat counted - repeated for large number of randomly placed quadrats - mean by quadrat - mean x number of times quadrat would fit into area = estimated population size
30
What does randomly placing quadrats do?
- removes any bias - increases accuracy of mean count
31
how do you find the distibution of a population?
- tape measure used to mark transect - quadrats placed at regular intervals along transect - number of individuals counted in each quadrat - bar chart showing number of individuals at each point along transect
32
What is a transect?
- line across the area whre the population is found
33
How do you position quadrats randomly?
- use random number generator - generate coordinates
34
How do you investigate the effect of factor on distribution?
- make sure transect runs across areas where factor varies - measure factor at each quadrat position + counting organism - present data as bar chart/ table/ scatter diagram - look for correlation
35
What is the carbon cycle?
- returns carbon from organisms to atomsphere as CO2 (respiration + microorganisms help decay) - used by plants in phtosynthesis - carbon (in form of food molecules) transferred from plants to animals during feeding
36
Describe the water cycle
- water evaporates - condenses as clouds - precipitation, water falls as rain, hail, snow, sleet - perlocation - water gets absorbed by ground but if soil is saturated some are run off - transpiration, water evaporates from leaves and more water is drawn up from ground by plant
37
What is biodiversity?
- variety of all the different species of organisms on earth or within an ecosystem
38
What is good biodiversity like?
- reduce dependence of one species on another for food/ shelter/ maintenance of physical environment - if one species of prey becomes exitinct -> predators could rely on others for survival
39
What does pollution in different areas look like?
in water - sewage, fertiliser or toxic chemicals in air - smoke and acidic gases on land - landfill and toxic chemicals
40
How does fertiliser harm the environment?
- washed from land to rivers when it rains - encourage growth of aquatic algae + plants - grow rapidly = outcompete each other = some die - bacteria decay dead plants, use dissolved oxygen to respire - reduced oxygen level can kill aquatic animals
41
How do acidic gases harm the environment?
- dissolve in rain and sea - reduce pH of water - increased acidity dissolves shells & skeletons of coral + crabs - could kill them
42
How do landfills harm the environment?
- toxic chemicals from waste leak into surrounding soil - contamination kill plants and animals
43
How do humans reduce the amount of land available for other animals?
- building - dumping waste - quarrying - farming
44
What is peat?
- remains of plants that have not decayed - conditions are anaerobic
45
What is peat used for?
- cheap compost for plants
46
Why do local plants and insects depend on peatlands
- plants require wet and acidic conditions of peat bogs - wetland insects depend on these plant species for food
47
What are the consequences of digging up peat?
- destroys habitat including plants - if insects are unable to migrate they die - reduces biodiversity - remaining exposed peat decays - burns easily -> could be set on fire - decay + burning of peat releases large amounts of CO2
48
What is the land created by clearing forests used for and what are their effects?
- grow crops for biofuels - rearing of cattle - soil erosion, waste pollutes local rivers - grow rice - mud in rice fields become anaerobic -> disturbed = releases methane
49
What is the impact of human activity in global warming?
- increased levels of CO2 and methane in atmosphere - CO2 released by burning fossil fuels + biological materials (eg wood/ peat) - decay of peat in damaged peatlands = More CO2 - methane released by cattle + flooded rice fields
50
What do methane and carbon dioxide do?
- greenhouse gases - trap heat from sun in earth's atmosphere - increasing mean air temperature
51
What does global warming cause?
- climate change - sea level rise - desertification
52
What are the biological consequences of global warming?
- **loss of habitat** - rise in sea level floods coastal marshes - **changes in distrubution** - some animals able to live in new places + pathogens able to spread to new places - **extinctions** - animals + plants unable to migrate becoming extinct
53
How do humans try to maintain biodiversity?
- protection and regeneration of rare habitats - recycling to reduce landfill - reintroduction of field margins and hedgerows - breeding programmes for endangered species - reduction of deforestation and CO2 emissions
54
How does protecting and regenerating rare habitats help maintian biodiversity?
- national parks + nature reserves - stop habitat destruction - food, fuelwood, farming needed - controversial for some countries to set aside large areas - illegal grazing/ poaching
55
How does recycling help maintain biodiversity?
- reduces volume of waste in landfill - reduces amount of land needed for new landfill sites = less habitat loss - reduces need for replacement resources
56
how do breeding programmes help maintain biodiversity?
- breeding captive endangered animals - cultivating wild plants - increases numbers of endangered animals + plants - releasing into wild
57
How does the reintroduction of field margins and hedgerows help maintain biodiversity?
- single crop = less food + fewer habitats for wild plants & animals - variety of plants = more food + wider range of habitats - supports organisms that are not supported by the crop
58
How are the reduction of deforestation and CO2 emissions being handled?
- governments trying to reduce rate of clearing tropical forests - countries reducing CO2 emissions
59
What factors affect the rate of decay?
- temperature - moisture level - oxygen level
60
How does temperature affect the rate of decay?
- higher temperature = higher activity of enzymes
61
How does moisture level affect the rate of decay?
- many biological molecules dissolve in water - microorganisms secrete enzymes onto biological material to disgest and absorb dissolved molecules - can't be done in dry conditions
62
How does oxygen affect the rate of decay?
- no oxygen = decay stops
63
How do gardeners increase the rate of decay of waste and what do they use it for?
- mix waste materials in compost heap = create airspaces for oxygen - decay releases mineral ions into compost = fertiliser
64
What does anaerobic decay make and where is it made? | and what is it used for
- methane gas - made in biogas generators - used as fuel
65
What happens if waste biological material enters a river?
- creates anaerobic conditions - bacteria uses up oxygen to decay materials - a lot = fish die from lack of oxygen for respiration
66
How do you investigate the effect of temperature on the rate of decay of fresh milk?
- measure pH of milk using pH meter/ universal indicator paper - incubate milk in water bath at different temperatures - check pH at regular intervals (24 hrs)
67
What does enviromental change affect and what types are there?
- affects distribution of species in ecosystem - temperature - water availability - composition of atmospheric gases - geographic - caused by human interaction - seasonal
68
What are the effects of environmental change on distribution?
- migration during winter to warmer areas (food) - colonise new areas - become extinct
69
Why is only a small percentage of biomass transferred to the next trophic level?
- animals do not eat all parts of an organism (roots and bones) - animals do not digest and absob all food they ingest, some egested as faeces - food molecules used in respiration, carbon dioxide and water excreted - some food molecules broken down, cannot be immediately used for growth, urea and water are excreted
70
What is food security?
- having enough food to feed a human population
71
What are the biological factors that threaten food security?
- **new pests and pathogens**, causes disease in animals and crops - **environmental changes** (eg famine) - **changing diets in developed countries** = scarce food resources transported around the world instead of being supplied to locals - **cost of agricultural chemicals** too high for small scale farmers (yield low without them) - **increasing birth rates** - **conflicts** arisen form in some parts of world, affects availability of water/ food
72
How are intensive animal farming methods designed to maximise growth?
- animals fed **high protein diets** - supplemented with **antibiotics** - kept indoors with **warm temperature** (less heat lost to environment, less food used for respiration to keep warm, more food used for growth) - **constrict/ limit movement** (less food used for energy for muscle contraction, more food used for growth)
73
Why has the stock/ population size of many fish species declined?
over-fishing
74
How are fisheries managed to limit how many fish are caught?
- regulating size of nets in boats = restricts number of fish caught - using fishing quotas, only allowed certain weight of fish per year | sufficient fish survive and reproduce, offspring adds to stock
75
How do fermenters work?
- conditions inside fermenter controlled - constant temperature, can be warmed or cooled (if microorganisms generate heat during aerobic respiration - air bubbled into fermenter to supply oxygen for aerobic respiration - food material with mineral ions added keeps microorganisms healthy
76
How is mycoprotein produced?
- produced by fusarium fungus - cultured on glucose syrup, aerobic conditions - fermenter - biomass harvested + purified
77
What is mycoprotein used for?
- meat substitute
78
Why are some crop plants been genetically modified?
- increase yield - more nutritious
79
What is golden rice?
- rice with the gene for producig beta-carotine inserted into genome - beta-carotine converted to vitamin A in human body - prevents vit A deficiency diseases
80
Why is golden rice only allowed in a couple of countries?
- concerns with safety of GM crops

Biology GCSE (13 decks)

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