LECTURE 13: INTRO TO ECOLOGY

Question 1

What is Ecology?

Answer 1

• The study of interactions between individuals and their environment
• The distribution and abundance of organisms
• The structure and function of ecosystems
• Essentially, the study of biodiversity

Question 2

Endosymbiotic Theory

Answer 2

Lyn Margulis
- Proposed that eukaryotic cells were derived from a prokaryote endosymbiotically ingesting a mitochondrial cell and establishing it within its growth and reproduction

Question 3

How many species of Eukaryotes are there?

Answer 3

8. 7 million species of eukaryotes that are known

- Impossible for the tracking of the number of archaea and bacteria are far too many for us to account for

Question 4

Model versus Non-model organisms

Answer 4

Model organisms: lab mice, flies, and plants

Non-model: everything else

Question 5

Questions ecologists ask

Answer 5

1. Why do all eukaryotes have mitochondrion and chloroplasts? Why don’t prokaryotes have them?
2. Why do mitochondrion have their own genome

Question 6

J.B.S Haldane

Answer 6

“Inordinate fondness of beetles” - If there was a creator that was responsible for the origin of species, he must have loved beetles as they are the most abundant species of insect

Question 7

What is evolution the conjunction of?

Answer 7

ecology and genetics

Question 8

What is a population

Answer 8

The number of individuals of one species at one time - The number of giraffes in the savannah

Question 9

What is an ecological community?

Answer 9

The amount of the various individuals of various species in one place and one time - the number of giraffes, lions, birds, and trees in the savannah

Question 10

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 10

The living and non-living components that make up an environment - the savannah itself

Question 11

Species that live everywhere

Answer 11

mountain lion

Question 12

Species that live practically nowhere

Answer 12

American pika

Question 13

Ebird and citizen science

Answer 13

databases in which individuals can publish and report on their observations and sightings of various species of birds

Question 14

Infection diseases act as species themselves…therefore

Answer 14

we want out dispersal as humans to be able to combat it

Question 15

What Determines where a species lives?

Answer 15

dispersal -> abiotic factors (conditions and resources) -> species in a community (prey, predators, mutualism) -> species in a community

These differ in space and time and thus certain organisms excel in certain gradients

Question 16

Conditions exists as gradients (graph)

Answer 16

• There are a range of tolerances that show how an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce is affected as it moves along a gradient
• The peak is the optimal conditions for the organism’s survival
• moving away from the peak we have the reproduction of the individual
• one standard deviation away is the individual growth of the organisms
• another standard deviation away is the ability of the organism to survive
• regions out of these zones are DEATH ZONES - a condition in which the organisms can’t survive in (mount Everest because it has 1/3 of the oxygen than there is at sea level)

Question 17

Malthus

Answer 17

• The rate at which individuals and the population is growing is too fast for the number of resources we have
• Nature needs to fight back and it will

Question 18

The Sixth extinction

Answer 18

• Extinction fo species due to human actions and activities

- 32% of vertebrates are on the verge of extinction due to our doings as humans