Lecture 9

Question 1

What is biomass?

Answer 1

How much stuff there is

Question 2

What is productivity?

Answer 2

How much stuff accumulates over time

Question 3

What does “stuff” refer to?

Answer 3

Mass, Carbon, Nitrogen

Question 4

Mussel productivity _____ with phytoplankton biomass

Answer 4

increases

Question 5

What is primary productivity?

Answer 5

growth at the base of the food chain

Question 6

What is secondary productivity?

Answer 6

growth at higher trophic levels

Question 7

What is a food chain?

Answer 7

a linear diagram that uses a single organism at each trophic level to illustrate the main pathway of carbon through a system

Question 8

What is a trophic level?

Answer 8

A species or group of species that feeds on one or more other species

Question 9

What are organisms refered to in a food chain?

Answer 9

Primary produces, primary consumers, secondary consumers

Question 10

What is a food web?

Answer 10

a diagram that shows the overall feeding relationships between organisms in an ecological community

Question 11

What is the bottom- up perspective?

Answer 11

This is how available biomass at the base of the food chain determines abundances of organisms at higher trophic levels

Question 12

What effect did El NIno have on fisheries?

Answer 12

Causes a change in temperature in the water

Question 13

How does El Nino affect phytoplankton?

Answer 13

it causes phytoplankton to migrate to different places

Question 14

How does El NIno affect fish population?

Answer 14

Fish populations no longer have food because the phytoplankton migrated

Question 15

How does El Nino affect people?

Answer 15

There are fewer fish available for humans to feed on because the fish don’t have any energy sources.

Question 16

Where does El NIno originate from?

Answer 16

It comes from the South American coast
-winds blowing from the south
-coriolis force moves the surface water offshore
-deep, cold, nutrient-rich water replaces it

Question 17

What happens during the El NIno years?

Answer 17

-trade winds decline
-warm water sloshes back across the Pacific
-the thermocline moves deeper
-upwelling no longer brings in cold nutrient-rich water to the surface

Question 18

What is the top-down perspective?

Answer 18

predator abundances can determine abundances of organisms at lower trophic levels

Question 19

What happens to urchin density where otters are present?

Answer 19

Urchin density will decrease

Question 20

What happens to kelp density?

Answer 20

Kelp density will increase

Question 21

What is a top-down perspective example?

Answer 21

Orca food has declined which leads to orcas eating sea otters

Question 22

What are the types of primary productivity?

Answer 22

gross primary production and net primary production

Question 23

What is GPP?

Answer 23

the total amount of carbon fixed by photosynthesis

Question 24

What is NPP?

Answer 24

the total amount of carbon fixed by photosynthesis minus the loss associated with respiration

Question 25

How do you measure primary productivity?

Answer 25

-measure carbon (uptake and assimilation)
-measure oxygen
-surrogates; electron transport rate, change in chlorophyll concentration over time

Question 26

What does a radiocarbon do?

Answer 26

measures radioactivity of phytoplankton as index of carbon assimilated

Question 27

Pulse Amplitude Modulated Fluorometry

Answer 27

Shines a light on an autotroph, then measures the rates of electron transport

Question 28

Remote sensing

Answer 28

measures ocean color based on satellite images, can determine rate of change, global scale estimates

Question 29

More productive pools were characterized by ?

Answer 29

-increase in pH over time
-decline in pCO2 over time
-increased in calcification over time

Question 30

Pools with more ___ abundances were more ___

Answer 30

seaweed, productive

Question 31

Where is productivity the highest?

Answer 31

In the hotspots

Question 32

What occurs in the “hotspots” of productivity?

Answer 32

-upwelling and coastal areas

Question 33

What does the coastal upwelling do?

Answer 33

-the equatorward winds along the west coasts of continents
-coriolis effect shifts surface waters offshore
-deep, cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface