Ecosystem Services

Question 1

What are the four types of ecosystem services?

Answer 1

Cultural
Provisioning
Supporting
Regulating

Question 2

What is the name of the benefits people get

Answer 2

Ecosystem services

Question 3

Definition of ecosystem

Answer 3

All living things in an area, interacting with each other and their non-living environments

Question 4

Definition of Biosphere

Answer 4

All living components on earth, including all organic matter that has not yet decomposed

Question 5

Definition of Biodiversity

Answer 5

The variety of all life on earth, in all its forms and all its interactions

Contraction of Biological and Diversity and describes the variety of life and its processes.

Question 6

What is the current number of described species

Answer 6

1.7m described. The estimated actual number is closer 10m

Question 7

IUCN acronym

Answer 7

International Union for conservation of nature

Question 8

Key causes of biovisersity loss

Answer 8

• Habitat loss due to deforestation and land use changes
• Fungal disease
• Climate change, increases in temperature etc
• Bush meat and other animal trades
• Contact with humans spreading viruses, e.g. Ebola
• Introduction of invasive, non native species, e.g. grey squirrel, American mink, Asian hornet, killer shrimp, monk parakeet

Question 9

What are the 3 types of diversity that make up biodiversity

Answer 9

Ecosystem
Species
Genetic

Question 10

Deinifiton of ecology

Answer 10

Ecology is the study of biological communities. Ecologists study how species interact and the processes which enable them to do this.

Question 11

What are the levels of organisation? (4)

Answer 11

Individual organism - animal, plant or microorganism
Population - a group of same species living in same place (Habitat)
Community - a collection of populations of all the organisms that occur together in a given place (habitat) and time
Ecosystem - includes all interacting physical and biological components of an area which may consist of one or more communities together with their physical surroundings

Question 12

Definition of Population

Answer 12

A group of the same species living in the same place (habitat) at the same time

Question 13

Definition of community

Answer 13

The sum of all organisms present in a place at a given time

AND

How these organisms interact

Both make up the community

Question 14

Name the 5 types of ecological interaction

Answer 14

Competition 
Predation
Parasitism
Mutualism
Commensalism

Question 15

Definition of competition (in ecological interaction)

Answer 15

Two or more species want the same limited resource (food or shelter). They may harm one another to get this resource

Question 16

Definition of Predation

Answer 16

One animal or species hunts, kills and eats all or part of a second animal species

Question 17

Deinfition of parasitism

Answer 17

Two species live in an obligatory association in which the parasite depends on the host. The parasite doesn’t normally kill the host but i may weaken it

E.g mistletoe on an apple tree

Question 18

Definition of mutualism

Answer 18

Two species live in close association to the benefit of both species, for example cleaner fish and sharks

• clown fish and sea anemones - crush keep clean and anemone allows protection from predators
• bees and flowers
• Spider crab and algae that disguises and protects form sun
• Bacteria and humans

Question 19

Definition of commensalism

Answer 19

Two species live in close association , once gains with you affecting the other

• clown fish and sea anemones
• tree frogs using plants as protection

Question 20

Examples of keystone species

Answer 20

Keystone species have a disproportionately large impact in comparison to their numbers and are critical for the long term survival of a community or ecosystem

• bees
• sea otters
• lions
• jaguars
• beavers

Question 21

What are the two concepts relating to ecological stability

Answer 21

Resistance

Resilience

Question 22

Definition of ecological resistance

Answer 22

Resistance measures how much an ecosystem resists change

A systems which remains the same despite disturbance or changes in, for example, nutrient input or changes in pollution level, has a high resistance

Ecosystems which are inhabited by a broad range of species, with few, if any niche habitats, are more likely to have global stability. In other words, they’re more likely to be highly resistant to changes in species composition and or food web dynamics.

They are said to have a high level of constancy

Question 23

Definition of ecological resilience

Answer 23

Resilience measures how quickly a system recovers from a disturbance, such as over predation, hunting, pollution and natural disaster, and returns to a steady state.