Final Exam Flashcards
Ecology
The scientific study of how organisms interact with each other and the environment
Communities
All the plants and animals in an area
Ecosystem
Includes living organisms and the environment around them
Direct fitness
Ability to survive and reproduce
Indirect fitness
Producing relatives
Properties of water
Solid below 0C
Liquid between 0-100C
Vapor over 100C
High specific heat
Resists change
Highest density at 4C
Osmosis
Water will move from areas of low concentration to high concentration of solute
Water potential
Water flows from high to low water potential
Potential energy of water
Plants and water trade-offs
Closing stomates to increase H2O retention and reduce intake of CO2
Opening stomates to increase CO2 but lose water
Conduction
Heat is transferred through touching an object
touch a hot thing, you get hotter
Convection
Heat is transferred through circulation of air or water
Evapotranspiration
Water loss through evaporation and transpiration
Ectothermy
Rely on energy exchange with external environment to regulate body temp
Reptiles
Endothermic
Rely on internal heat generation to regulate body temp
Humans
Climate
Long-term trends in temp, wind, and precipitation based on averages and variations measured over decades
Weather
Current temp, wind, precipitation…
Drivers of climate variation
Solar radiation
Earth’s surface
Chemical composition of the atmosphere
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
Albedo
The capacity of land surface to reflect solar radiation
Low- high surface warming, keeps energy
High- low surface warming, energy is reflected
Greenhouse gas
Atmospheric gas that absorbs longwave radiation
Water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide
Life history strategy
How an organism obtains evolutionary fitness throughout it’s lifetime
What are life history decisions driven by?
Resource availability and external cues
R-selected species ideas
Live fast, die young
Rapid reproduction and high growth rate
Exponential growth
K-selected species ideas
Flow and steady
Slower reproduction rates when the population approaches carrying capacity
Semelparous
Reproduce once and then die
Salmon, pineapple
Iteroparous
Reproduce many times
Bunnies
Asexual reproduction
Vegetative reproduction and parthenogenesis
Vegetative reproduction
Offspring produced from non-sexual tissues of parent
Parthenogenesis
Offspring produced without fertilization
Asexual versus sexual reproduction
Asexual is quicker and a direct copy of your genome and change can be difficult
Sexual you lose half your genetic info each time and it takes longer but changes can happen easier
Hermaphrodites
Possess both male and female functions
Social monogamy
Biparental care
Occurs when it is difficult to monopolize multiple females
Polygyny
Associated with female sociality
Male control of resources coupled with habitat heterogeneity
Polyandry
No choice for males, very few females
Intrasexual selection
Mate competition within gender
Intense fighting
Competition and dominance
Intersexual selection
Choosier sex picks their mate
Choose mates with preferred characteristics
Handicap principle
Females prefer a trait that reduces male survival
Benefits of group living
Protection against predators
Group foraging/hunting
Care of offspring
Thermoregulation
Costs of group living
May attract predators
Spread of disease/parasites
Competition
Conspecific aggression
Cooperation
Positive for donor and recipient
Selfishness
Positive for donor
Negative for recipient
Altruism
Negative for donor
Positive for recipient
Behavior that increases the recipient’s direct fitness, while lowering the direct fitness of the donor
Spitefulness
Negative for donor and recipient
Kin selection
Animals help relatives reproduce, and so pass on shared alleles
A relative will help if…
Benefit times relatedness will outweigh the cost
Characteristics of eusocial species
Adults live in a group
Overlapping generations
Cooperative brood care
Reproductive dominance by one or a few individuals, with sterile individuals
Coefficient of relatedness values for
Parent-child
Full sibs
Half sibs
Grandparent-grandchild
0.5
0.5
0.25
0.25
Population
Same species that occupy the same area and interact with each other
Exponential growth assumptions
Unlimited resources
All individuals are equivalent
No I or E
B and D are constant
Geometric growth assumptions
Unlimited resources
All individuals are equivalent
No I or E
1 birthing event with constant deaths
Doubling time
Time required for a population to double in size
Density-dependent factors
Cause birth and death rates to change as population density changes
Logistic model assumptions
Unlimited resources
All individuals are equivalent
No I or E
Constant B and D
K is constant
Carrying capacity (K)
Max population that can be supported and is dependent on species and environmental variables
Age structure
Proportion of individuals in a population in different age classes
Incorporating age structures relaxes the assumptions
That all individuals are the same
The birth and death rates are constant
Types of survival curves
1- survival to old age
2- constant dying
3- most dye young
Survivorship
Proportion surviving from birth to age x
Fecundity
Average number of offspring produced by a female of age x
Metapopulations
A population of populations of the same species
Assumptions of Levins model
Infinite number of patches that are exactly the same
Equal chance of patch recolonization
Equal chance of patch extinction
Colonization patches go to K more quickly than extinction and colonization rates
Levins model is at equilibrium when
The extinction and colonization rate are equivalent
How do you increase the metapopulation dynamics to work for a population?
Increase patch size
Increase patch connectivity
Look at what size and shape that population needs
Habitat fragmentation
Divides a previously continuous habitat
Mutualism
Positive for both species
Parasitism
Predation herbivory
Positive for one species and negative for the other
Competition
Negative for both species
Commensalism
Neutral for one species and positive for the other
Amensulism
Neutral for one species and negative for the other
Why is there competition?
Limiting resources (nutrients, light, water, space)
Intraspecific competition
Competition between individuals of the same species
Interspecific competition
Competition between individuals of different species
Exploitation competition
Two species consuming the same limiting resource
The species that requires less of the resource will survivie
Interference competition
Two species interact antagonistically for access to a resource
Allelopathy
Interference competition in plants that occurs when a plant releases chemicals that are toxic to competitors
Co-Existence can’t happen when
Two species use the same resource in the same way
Species can co-exist when
Species have two different niches
Niche
Unique combination of conditions under which a species can survive
Competitive exclusion principle
If two species use resources in exactly the same way, one will eventually drive the other to extinction
Resource partitioning
Co-existing species use the same resources in different ways
Predation
One organism kills and eats another individual
Herbivory
One organism eats living tissue of plants/algae
Parasitism
One organism lives on or in another individual, feeding on parts of the host
Assumptions of prey model
Predators control prey abundance (without predators, prey would grow without limits)
No density dependence
Intrinsic growth rate and capture efficiency are constant
Assumptions of predator model
Predator population is controlled by prey abundance
No density dependence
Efficiency of prey to predators, capture efficiency, and mortality rate of predators are constant
Stability of LV model occurs when
p=1
N=1
Aposematism
Conspicuous appearance of prey that indicates to a predator that it is dangerous or unpleasant
Müllerian mimicry
Two unpalatable species have similar appearances
Batesian mimicry
A palatable species mimics an unpalatable species
How do plants reduce herbivory?
Avoidance
Tolerance
Defense
Avoidance
Swamping seed predators by synching up reproduction of seeds (like acorns)
Tolerance
Compensation by removal of plant tissue stimulates growth
Defense
Structural or chemical defenses like cacti or toxins
Constitutive timing of plant secondary compounds
Compound is always produced
Induced timing of plant secondary compounds
Compound only produced in response to herbivory
Parasite
Lives on/in other organisms that consume resources from host
Pathogens
Parasites that cause disease
Ectoparasites
Lives on a host
High exposure to natural enemies and external enviornment
Endoparasites
Lives inside of a host
High exposure to host’s immune system, easy to feed, and difficult to move between hosts
Vertical parasite transmission
Between offspring and parent
Horizontal parasite transmission
Between other individuals
Vectors
Intermediates that pathogens have to go through to get to a host
How do you reduce disease spread?
Reduce transmission rate (sanitation, exposing fewer people)
Increase rate of infected to not susceptible (vaccination, increasing rate of recovery)
Coevolution
Evolution of two interacting species, which respond to selection imposed by the other species
