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Bio 20 > Ecosystems and Population Change > Flashcards

Ecosystems and Population Change Flashcards

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Biology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What is the study of interactions between organisms and their non-living environments?

A

Ecology

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2
Q

What are transition areas between ecosystems called?

A

Ecotones

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3
Q

What are ecotones characterized by?

A

They are usually characterized by greater biodiversity than either of the overlapping ecosystems

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4
Q

What does the increased biodiversity of ecotones create?

A

Creates more stable food webs for many organisms

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5
Q

What is an organisms role in an ecosystem (including it place in the food web, habitat, breeding area, etc.) called?

A

Ecological niche

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6
Q

What occurs if a new species (exotic species) is introduced into an ecosystem?

A

Competition (with any species that fulfills the same niche)

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7
Q

What does competition result in?

A

One of the species will be outcompeted and cannot survive in the ecosystem (the entire ecosystem will be disrupted)

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8
Q

What is the maximum number of offspring a species can produce, when resources are unlimited called?

A

Biotic potential

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9
Q

What four factors determine biotic potential?

A
  1. Number of offspring
  2. Breeding frequency
  3. Length of reproductive life
  4. Capacity for survival
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10
Q

What is number of offspring per birth?

A

Maximum number of offspring in one reproductive cycle

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11
Q

What is breeding frequency?

A

Number of times a species reproduces (reproductive cycle) per year

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12
Q

What is length of reproductive life?

A

The age of sexual maturity to the age when reproductive ability is lost

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13
Q

What is capacity for survival?

A

The number of offspring that survive to reproductive age

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14
Q

What are environmental factors that prevent populations from reaching their biotic potential called?

A

Limiting factors (environmental resistance)

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15
Q

What are the two types of limiting factors?

A
  1. Abiotic factors

2. Biotic factors

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16
Q

What are temperature (too hot/cold), harmful chemicals in the environment, bioaccumulation, and too much/little light examples of?

A

Abiotic factors (non-living)

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17
Q

What are excessive predators, diseases/parasites, diminished ability to compete, and insufficient food examples of?

A

Biotic factors (living)

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18
Q

What is the maximum number of individuals of a particular species that can be supported in an ecosystem at a particular time called?

A

Carrying capacity

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19
Q

What determines carrying capacity?

A

The availability of food, presence of predators, disease, and other resources

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20
Q

What happens if a population exceeds the carrying capacity?

A

The population will decline until it re-stabilizes

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21
Q

What will often determine the number of organisms that can live in an ecosystem?

A

Abiotic factors

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22
Q

What are the two basic rules that govern the effects of abiotic factors?

A
  1. Law of minimums

2. Law of tolerance

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23
Q

What does the law of minimums state?

A

States that the nutrient or resource in the least supply is the one that limits growth (minimal water during a drought)

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24
Q

What does the law of tolerance state?

A

States that organisms can only tolerate or survive within a particular range of abiotic factors (ex. temperature)

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25
Q

What are the two biotic factors that determine the carrying capacity for a species in an ecosystem?

A
  1. Density dependent factors

2. Density independent factors

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26
Q

What do density dependent factors affect?

A

Affect only large populations because of the density (numbers) of individuals

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27
Q

What are examples of density dependent factors?

A

Disease, food supply, predators, availability of sunlight/ water due to competition, space

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28
Q

What do density independent factors affect?

A

Affect all members of a population regardless of the numbers of individuals present

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29
Q

What are examples of density independent factors?

A

Fire, flood, drought, chemicals, climate change, other natural disasters

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30
Q

What four major abiotic factors limit terrestrial ecosystems?

A
  1. Soil (and soil pH)
  2. Available water
  3. Temperature
  4. Sunlight
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31
Q

What are three terrestrial biomes?

A
  1. Grasslands (prairies)
  2. Deciduous forest
  3. Taiga (Canadian shield)
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32
Q

What are two things that cause terrestrial ecosystems to change?

A
  1. Forestry

2. Forest Fires

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33
Q

How does forestry cause terrestrial ecosystems to change?

A

Deforestation by slash and burn, clear cutting, or by selective cutting

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34
Q

What are forest fires?

A

A natural ecological process (usually means renewal and rebirth for most ecosystems)

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35
Q

Why are forest fires a sometimes positive occurrence?

A

Effective at cleaning up dead plant material and stimulating re-growth of young healthy plants. (A quick way of recycling/ decomposing waste and nutrients) (Ash) (nitrates + phosphates)

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36
Q

What are often very diverse and important to the earth’s ecological state?

A

Aquatic ecosystems

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37
Q

What three major abiotic factors affect aquatic ecosystems?

A
  1. Chemical environment (dissolved oxygen)
  2. Light levels (most important abiotic factor)
  3. Temperature
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38
Q

What determines if a body of water is a lake or pond?

A

Depth/visibility

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39
Q

What occurs during winter and summer due to variations in the amount of sun that hits a lake?

A

Lake statification

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40
Q

What does lake stratification form?

A

3 layers due to the temperature created by the variation in sunlight

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41
Q

What are the three layers called?

A
  1. Epilimnion
  2. Hypolimnion
  3. Thermocline
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42
Q

What is the epilimnion?

A

Top layer; due to sunlight this layer is extremely warm and has lots of O2 (as a result of photosynthesis)

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43
Q

What is the hypolimnion?

A

Bottom layer; due to a lack of sunlight it is colder and has low amounts of O2 (due to no photosynthesis)… however this is the sight of lots of decomposition and hence lots of nutrients

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44
Q

What is the thermocline?

A

Transition point; quick transition between the epilimnion and hypolimnion

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45
Q

What zones are part of the epilimnion?

A

Littoral zone and limnetic zone

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46
Q

What zones are part of the hypolimnion?

A

Profundal zone and benthos

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47
Q

What zone is shallow and extends outward until the bottom is met?

A

Littoral zone

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48
Q

What does the littoral zone contain?

A

Lots of aquatic plants (photosynthesis > O2), different animals. Most Biodiversity!

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49
Q

What zone is open water and goes as deep as the sun goes?

A

Limnetic zone (euphatic zone)

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50
Q

What does the limnetic zone contain?

A

Lot’s of plankton, crustaceans, some fish and floating plants (some O2 production due to the phytoplankton and plants)

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51
Q

What zone gets no sunlight, sits beneath the limnetc zone, and is where no photosynthesis occurs?

A

Profundal zone

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52
Q

What does the profundal zone contain?

A

Lot’s of nutrients (due to decomposition), low O2 (due to decomposers), some chemosynthesis, low biodiversity, lots of bacteria

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53
Q

What is benthos?

A

the sludge/mud at the bottom of the lake

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54
Q

What are NEWER lakes that are DEEP, and COLD with LOW NUTRIENT LEVELS; these types of lakes tend to support larger fish, as they have HIGHER OXYGEN CONTENT?

A

Oligotrophic lakes

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55
Q

What are OLDER lakes that have become filled in with DETRITUS, the water is WARM, SHALLOW, and NUTRIENT RICH; these lakes are on their way to becoming marshes and eventually dry land?

A

Eutrophic levels

56
Q

What are three things that determines water quality?

A
  1. Bacteria
  2. Dissolved O2 (DO)
  3. Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD)
57
Q

What do scientists use to name and group organisms?

A

Taxonomy

58
Q

What is taxonomy?

A

The science of classification according to presumed relationships among organisms

59
Q

What type of system do scientists use to classify organisms into series of smaller groups?

A

A hierarchal system

60
Q

What order is the hierarchal system?

A 
Domain- bacteria, eukarya, archea
Kingdom- monera, protista, plantae, fungi, animalia
Phylum- sub-groups of each kingdom
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
61
Q

What are species?

A

Organisms that are very similar and can naturally interbreed to produce fertile offspring

62
Q

When organisms are assigned a scientific name, how is it arranged?

A

Genus species

63
Q

What is this naming system called?

A

Binomial nomenclature (created by Carl Linnaeus)

64
Q

What does the genus name indicate?

A

Organisms that are similar (always capitalized) (Homo)

65
Q

What does the species name indicate?

A

Organism that are different (always lowercase) (sapiens)

66
Q

What are the five kingdoms?

A
  1. Prokaryotae
  2. Protista
  3. Fungi
  4. Plantae
  5. Animalia
67
Q

What does the prokaryote kingdom include?

A

Bacteria (eubacteria and archaebacteria) (unicellular w/ no cell nucleus)

68
Q

What does the Protista kingdom include?

A

Single celled plants and animals (algae) (unicellular w/ a nucleus)

69
Q

What does the Fungi kingdom include?

A

Mushrooms, yeasts, moulds (multicellular decomposers)

70
Q

What does the Plantae kingdom include?

A

Trees, flowers, mosses, and ferns (multicellular, photosynthesizers)

71
Q

What does the Animalia kingdom include?

A

Sponges, worms, crustaceans, insects, and mammals (multicellular and heterotrophs)

72
Q

Because naming 2-5 million organisms presents challenges, what can be used to overcome this challenge?

A

Dichotomous keys

73
Q

What are dichotomous keys used for?

A

Used to identify and classify organisms based on their characteristics

74
Q

What is the history of evolution of a species or group of organisms called?

A

Phylogeny

75
Q

What is the history, and evolutionary relationships between organisms often shown in?

A

A phylogenetic tree

76
Q

What is excessive richness of nutrients in an aquatic ecosystem called?

A

Eutrophication

77
Q

What can eutrophication increase?

A

The rate of succession

78
Q

What is succession?

A

Gradual changes in the abiotic and biotic components of an ecosystem (natural or human induced)

79
Q

What is primary succession?

A

Gradual changes that begin with the making of soil (after a volcano or glacier receding)

80
Q

What is secondary succession?

A

Gradual changes that occur after soil is there, or, if soil is already around (lake succession, farming, after a forest fire)

81
Q

What are the steps of aquatic succession?

A
  1. Big deep oligotrophic lake
  2. Shallow eutrophic lake
  3. Pond
  4. Swamp/slough
  5. Marsh
  6. Dried up terrestrial ecosystem with lots of nutrients
82
Q

What is the theory that states, changes occur and can be seen in the inherited traits of a populations from one generation to another?

A

Evolution

83
Q

Who believed, “all living species are decedents of ancestral species and are different from present day ones due to the cumulative changes in the genetic composition of a population” ?

A

Darwin

84
Q

What is the best form of evidence to support evolution?

A

Fossils

85
Q

What is the study of fossils?

A

Paleontology

86
Q

What do fossils provide?

A

A historical record of organisms that once lived

87
Q

What are three things that fossils have revealed?

A
  1. In the past earth was home to species that are very different from the ones that exist today
  2. The complexity of organisms has seemed to increase
  3. Living species and their fossil matches are found in the same geographical regions
88
Q

How do palaeontologists measure the age of fossils/rock?

A

Uses radioactive decay to measure the age of an object

89
Q

What do radioactive elements lose as they decay at a constant rate?

A

Particles (and mass)

90
Q

What is the half life of an object?

A

Is the time it takes for half the sample to decay and become stable

91
Q

How can palaeontologists estimate the age of fossils?

A

Measure the age if rock in which fossils are found (creating a chronological evolutionary scale)

92
Q

What is another type of evolutionary evidence that studies the distribution of different organisms on the surface of the earth?

A

Biogeography

93
Q

What has happened to the earth’s continents over long periods of time?

A

They have shifted position

94
Q

What has the shifting of continents resulted in?

A

The redistribution of living organisms

95
Q

How can it be proved that the continents have shifted?

A

They can be matched up geographically and biologically

96
Q

What are the five time periods?

A
  1. Permian (Pangea) (225 million years ago)
  2. Triassic (200 million years ago)
  3. Jurassic (135 million years ago)
  4. Cretaceous (65 million years ago)
  5. Present day (current)
97
Q

What is anatomical evidence?

A

Structural evidence; studying similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms, and in their embryological development to determine ancestral links between organisms

98
Q

What are three different forms of anatomical evidence?

A
  1. Homologous structures
  2. Analogous structures
  3. Vestigial features
99
Q

What are homologous structures?

A

Features with similar structures, and different functions that indicate an evolutionary relationship between organisms (show evolution from a common ancestor)

100
Q

What are analogous structures?

A

Features with similar functions, but very different structures that indicate there is little evolutionary link between organism (shows no common ancestor)

101
Q

What are vestigial features?

A

Rudimentary (basic) structures that have no clear function that may have once been important, but are now evolving out of existence (appendix & tailbone)

102
Q

What is a type of evolutionary evidence that uses DNA to compare organisms?

A

Biochemical evidence

103
Q

What will similar organisms have?

A

More similar DNA and amino acid sequences (monkeys & humans)

104
Q

What is embryology?

A

When organisms show similar stages in the development of the embryo or share embryonic structures

105
Q

Who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics?

A

Lamarck

106
Q

Lamarck believed that organisms would evolve and develop a certain trait through what?

A

Desire

107
Q

How long did Lamarck believe it would take an organism to evolve its desired characteristic?

A

Within a lifetime

108
Q

What did Lamarck believe happened to unnecessary traits?

A

The organism would lose it (use-disuse theory)

109
Q

What did Lamarck believe happened to these traits?

A

Could be passed down to offspring (inheritance)

110
Q

What did Lamarck believe about the direction of evolution?

A

It was unidirectional

111
Q

Who believed in natural selection and survival of the fittest?

A

Darwin

112
Q

What did Darwin believe about organisms?

A

That there were many variations among them

113
Q

How did Darwin believe traits were passed down?

A

traits that were better adapted to survival and reproductive success would be passed down

114
Q

What were the 5 parts of Darwin’s theory?

A
  1. Variations exist among organisms
  2. In a changing environment, overpopulation and hence competition will occur for limiting factors
  3. Specific variations were better adapted to survival than others, only those that survive will sexually reproduce (survival of the fittest)
  4. The adaptive traits will be inherited and passed down to the offspring
  5. Natural selection always occurs and is the mechanism for change… each trait has the chance to be passed on, but its likely the better adapted trait would be passed on
115
Q

What did Darwin believe about the direction of evolution?

A

It was multidirectional (due to environmental changes)

116
Q

What determines an organisms traits/characteristics?

A

Chromosomes

117
Q

What is the biggest reason for variation?

A

Mutations

118
Q

What are mutations?

A

Random changes in the DNA sequence of a chromosome

119
Q

What might mutations be?

A
  1. Neutral (no effect)
  2. Harmful (hinder survival and reproductive success)
  3. Beneficial (improve survival and reproductive success)
120
Q

What is most biological diversity in organisms a result of?

A

Random mutations

121
Q

What involves the production of an organism from two different parents?

A

Sexual reproduction

122
Q

What will the offspring of sexual reproduction inherit?

A

Half the genetic characteristics of both parents, increasing variability

123
Q

What involves the production of an individual from one parent, resulting in genetically identical offspring?

A

Asexual reproduction

124
Q

What does cloning result in?

A

Decreased genetic diversity/variation and could possibly cause and unstable population

125
Q

What is the formation of a new species?

A

Speciation and evolution

126
Q

How can speciation occur?

A

A step by step process known as allopatric speciation

127
Q

What are the steps of allopatric speciation?

A
  1. A physical barrier separates a population
  2. Environmental pressures on the two groups are very different causing the populations to evolve indpendently
  3. The differences become so extreme that the two populations can no longer interbreed to produce fertile offspring (different species)
128
Q

What is the theory that states speciation takes place very slowly and is due to natural selection?

A

Theory of gradualism

129
Q

What is the theory that states species evolve in bursts very rapidly, followed by longer periods of stability (little change), and again is due to natural selection?

A

Theory of punctuated equilibrium

130
Q

What is divergent evolution?

A

The evolution into many different species, due to different environmental pressures (usually due to a barrier)(Darwin described as descent with modification)

131
Q

What is convergent evolution?

A

The development of a similar appearance, structure or behaviours in unrelated species due to similar environmental pressures

132
Q

What is an example of divergent evolution?

A

Homologous structures

133
Q

What is an example of convergent evolution?

A

Analogous structures

134
Q

What are adaptations?

A

Changes that occur that give an organism a better chance at survival

135
Q

What are structural/physical adaptations?

A

Changes that occur to the external features (fur)

136
Q

What are physiological structures?

A

Changes that occur internally (organs)

137
Q

What are behavioural adaptations?

A

Changes to the regular behaviour of an organism (hibernation)

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