Lecture 1 & 2: What is Ecology?

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of the interactions organisms engage in with each other and their physical environment

Question 2

How do we define an organism/individual

Answer 2

-An organism has an autonomous life in the environment with a boundary/interface across which energy and resources are exchanged with the environment
-The level where internal and external biological processes meet

Question 3

Levels of organismal complexity

Answer 3

simple prokaryotic cells -> organized and internally specialized eukaryotic cells -> simple multicellular organisms -> complex multicellular organisms with internal specialization -> simple societies -> complex functionally integrated societies

Question 4

What does organismal complexity and organization determine?

Answer 4

the types of ecological interactions that organisms are involved with

Question 5

what is the simplest ecological system composed of?

Answer 5

the individual organism and environmental interactions

Question 6

what are biotic interactions?

Answer 6

when an organism interacts with another organism

Question 7

what are abiotic interactions?

Answer 7

an organism interacting with its external environment

Question 8

what are consumer resource interactions?

Answer 8

-one species gains a positive (the consumer) while the other gains a negative (the resource)
-ex: predation/parasitoidism, parasitism, and herbivory

Question 9

what is predation?

Answer 9

-it is when an organism feeds on another organism
-the organism feeding gains a positive while the organism that is the ‘food’ gains a negative

Question 10

what is parasitoidism?

Answer 10

-it is when an organism lives inside of a host or feeds off of it, this results in the host dying
-the organism living inside the host gains a positive while the host gains a negative

Question 11

what is parasitism?

Answer 11

-this is when an organism lives off of a host, the host may or may not die
-the organism living off of the host gains a positive while the host gains a negative

Question 12

what is herbivory?

Answer 12

-when an organism feeds off of plants
-the organism gains a positive while the plants gain a negative

Question 13

what is competition?

Answer 13

-when both organisms compete for resources
-both organisms gain a negative because the competition limits resources for both organisms

Question 14

what is mutualism?

Answer 14

-both organisms work together in their environment
-both gain a positive

Question 15

what is commensalism?

Answer 15

-one organism gains a positive while the other has no effect

Question 16

what is the scaling of ecological systems?

Answer 16

Individual -> populations -> communities -> ecological -> biosphere

Question 17

individual organisms generate what unique process?

Answer 17

-the process of natural selection
-you can track down survival and reproduction

Question 18

populations generate what unique process?

Answer 18

-the process of evolution
-evolution can only be measured at this level
-can track the number and distribution of one species

Question 19

communities generate what unique process?

Answer 19

• the processes generating patterns of biodiversity
  -can track interactions among species

Question 20

ecosystems generate what unique process?

Answer 20

-the process of energy flux and nutrient cycling
-can track the exchange of common elements among organisms and the environment

Question 21

the biosphere generates what unique process?

Answer 21

-global processes of stability and change
-can track global movement and location of life and resources.

Question 22

what are the three common processes that influence interactions across all ecological systems and scales

Answer 22

1. Ecological systems transform and conserve matter and energy.
2. Ecological systems exist in dynamic states.
3. Ecological systems evolve over time

Question 23

what is the Metabolic Theory of Ecology?

Answer 23

All organisms share common constraints on their metabolic rate, and this governs all ecological processes

Question 24

what is Ecological Stoichiometry?

Answer 24

it is focused on how the relative balance of elements and the resulting chemical reactions govern ecological systems.

Question 25

what is a dynamic steady/stable state?

Answer 25

-continuous gains and losses are balanced so that there is no net change in the ecological system.
-Each ecological scale has different gains and losses

Question 26

what does the individual organism level balance?

Answer 26

it balances expenditures

Question 27

what does the population level balance?

Answer 27

it balances births and deaths

Question 28

what does the community level balance?

Answer 28

it balances species migration, extinction, and speciation

Question 29

what does the ecosystem level balance?

Answer 29

it balances energy, elements, chemistry, and water

Question 30

what does the biosphere balance?

Answer 30

it balances the gain and loss of solar energy

Question 31

how do ecological systems evolve over time?

Answer 31

-ecological interactions drive evolutionary change and evolutionary change drives new changes in ecological interactions
-because evolutionary changes evolve, so does the change in ecological systems

Question 32

what is an adaption?

Answer 32

a trait of a species that has evolved from generation to generation to improve the fit of the species

Question 33

what is natural selection?

Answer 33

the evolutionary mechanism that generates adaptations

Question 34

what is a null hypothesis?

Answer 34

it is the expected outcome if the investigators hypothesis is incorrect (usually no effect of the study)

Question 35

what is an observational study?

Answer 35

-studying by observing the natural world in a structured way
-advantage: often easy to initiate
-disadvantage: unknown and/or uncontrollable influences might impact your data and conclusions

Question 36

what is an experimental study?

Answer 36

-allows greater control and greater confidence in results
-disadvantage: harder to do in the natural world and you can only control one variable

Question 37

what is a natural experiement?

Answer 37

-use naturally occurring differences to better structure observational studies
-example: using an island

Question 38

what is a microcosm experiments?

Answer 38

-Big ecological systems made small
-example: using a tank to study the ocean

Question 39

what is mathematical modeling?

Answer 39

components of a complex ecological system represented numerically and manipulated to track changes