Ecosystems

Question 1

what are Terrestrial ecosystems?

Answer 1

a land-based community of organisms and the interactions of biotic and abiotic components in a given area.

Question 2

what are the four main categories of Terrestrial ecosystems?

Answer 2

• chemical (e.g. nature of the soil)
• geographical (e.g. topography -phys features of land surface and altitude)
• physical and climatic (e.g. transparency of air, lack of buoyancy)
• biological

Question 3

what are biomes

Answer 3

• A biome is a large area that is defined by its climate and dominant plant species (e.g. desert community, rainforest).

Question 4

Some biomes display a series of different vertical layers on top of each other, called what?

Answer 4

vertical stratification.

Question 5

what is vertical stratification?

Answer 5

a verticle layering of an ecosystem for the classification of plant and animal communities, a key factor for structuring their species richness and biodiversity.

Question 6

what are microhabitats?

Answer 6

Small habitats form within ecosystems which may be different from the surrounding larger habitat. These are called microhabitats.

Question 7

what is zonation?

Answer 7

Zonation refers to change in a community horizontally along an environmental gradient

-changes in altitude, latitude, tidal level.

Question 8

what is a ecoregion?

Answer 8

• An ecoregion is a subdivision of an ecozone.
• It is a geographically distinct community based on geology, soils, climate and predominant vegetation.

Question 9

what is a niche

Answer 9

An organism’s niche is its role and position in its environment.

food
feeding techniques
daily activity
habitat
physical conditions it tolerates.

The more similar the niche, the greater the competition will be.

Question 10

what is Gauses law?

Answer 10

Competitive Exclusion Principle or Gause’s Law:

states that two species with identical/highly overlapping niches cannot coexist indefinitely in the same ecosystem.

Question 11

Populations in an ecosystem vary according to what changing factors?

Answer 11

1.Abiotic factors
2.Predation
3.Competition
4.Symbiosis
5.Disease

Question 12

What is distribution and abundance of a species ?

Answer 12

• Distribution is where a particular species is found.
• Abundance is the number of the species in that locality.

Question 13

carrying capacity influenced by three limiting factors what are these?

Answer 13

food availability, water, and space.

Question 14

what is carrying capacity?

Answer 14

the maximum number of a species that can sustainably live in a given area

Question 15

compare density independent with density dependent

Answer 15

• Density independent: work independently of how crowded the population is e.g natural distress such as bushfires, weather/climate changes
• Density-dependent: factors will intensify as population size increases…e.g predation and competition, waste accumulation, disease by parasites
• In reality, both types of factors can interact on a population

Question 16

explainhow environmental factors limit the distribution and abundance of species in an ecosystem.

Answer 16

Environmental factors can limit the distribution and abundance of species in an ecosystem. This is because each organism has their own specific tolerance limit or range that restricts where that organism could potentially live.

Question 17

How the process of classifying ecosystems is an important step towards effective ecosystem management in coral reefs?

Answer 17

Classification of ecosystems helps to support understanding of their unique interactions and therefore the effect of specific human impacts. This can lead to longer term resilience.

Question 18

what is adaptive radiation?

Answer 18

If there are suddenly a lot of unoccupied niches, a species can rapidly adapt to take advantage of them. This is calledadaptive radiation. Multiple species result from one ancestral species.