exam 4

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

the study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment

Question 2

What are the levels of ecology?

Answer 2

• Individual/organismal
• Populatiom
• Community
• Ecosystem
• Biosphere

Question 3

What is individual/organismal ecology?

Answer 3

The way an individual’s morphology, physiology, and behavior enable to survive in its environment

Question 4

What is population ecology?

Answer 4

Variation over time and space in the number of individuals, the density of individuals, and the composition of individuals (same species, same place, same time)

Question 5

What is community ecology?

Answer 5

The diversity and relative abundances of different kinds of organisms living together in the same place and describing the nature and consequences of species interactions

Question 6

What is ecosystem ecology?

Answer 6

The storage of energy and matter, including various chemical elements essential for life (includes biotic and abiotic factors)

Question 7

What is biosphere ecology?

Answer 7

Includes movements of air and water (along with the energy and chemical elements they have) over the entirety of Earth’s surface

Question 8

Conservation approach of ecology

Answer 8

effort to study, preserve, and restore threatened populations, communities, and ecosystems

Question 9

habitat destruction

Answer 9

Humans create areas for farming or buildings that destroy the habitats of existing organisms living there

Question 10

pollution

Answer 10

Factories and cars that release pollutants such as VOCs, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, etc., that can be harmful to humans, the environment, and other living organisms

Question 11

overharvesting of resources

Answer 11

Overfishing, hunting, poaching, and harvesting of natural resources

Question 12

climate change

Answer 12

Ozone depletion (used to be a massive hole in the ozone layer in the 20th century due to CFCs)

Question 13

how do humans alter the land?

Answer 13

• habitat destruction
• pollution
• overharvesting of resources
• climate change

Question 14

law of conservation of matter

Answer 14

matter can’t be created or destroyed, only changed

Question 15

1st Law of Thermodynamics

Answer 15

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred

Question 16

how can ecologists track movement of matter and energy and note when it is converted into new forms?

Answer 16

through organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and the biosphere

Question 17

Dynamic Steady State

Answer 17

• Describes the continuous loss and gains of a system
• Similar to flow of energy/matter in a system
• Can be broken down into the five ecological approaches of individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere

Question 18

Abundance

Answer 18

The number of individuals within a population

Question 19

Distribution

Answer 19

The spatial arrangement of individuals in a population or species

Question 20

Abiotic and biotic factors can affect…

Answer 20

abundance and distribution

Question 21

Abiotic Factors

Answer 21

• Non-living
• Examples include water availability, temperature, oxygen availability, salinity, etc.

Question 22

Biotic Factors

Answer 22

• Living
• Examples include prep and predator species

Question 23

Niche

Answer 23

The product of abiotic and biotic factors that affect where a species lives that gives a species a certain “job” or ecological role

Question 24

Weather

Answer 24

Short-term atmospheric conditions of temperature, precipitation, sunlight, and wind

Question 25

Climate

Answer 25

Long-term weather conditions found in an area

Question 26

Why are tropics warm and poles cold?

Answer 26

• Warm areas receive large amounts of sunlight because of the angles of the Earth (since it’s a sphere)
• The steeper the angle a specific surface of the Earth has compared to incoming light rays results in high temperatures near the tropics and colder temperatures near the poles

Question 27

Why are the tropics usually wet? (for equatorial hadley cells)

Answer 27

• Warm air near the equator rises and as it rises it will cool, dropping rain (warm air rises due to lower density compared to cold air)
• As it rains, the colder air is pushed towards the poles, the now cold dry air warms and continues the cycle.

Question 28

Mid-latitude hadley cells move (in which direction)

Answer 28

the opposite direction of equatorial cells

Question 29

polar cells move in which direction

Answer 29

the same direction as equatorial cells

Question 30

How many Hadley cells are there?

Answer 30

• 6
• 3 North
• 3 South