Module 2 - Principles of Ecology Flashcards
What is ecology?
The study of the interactions between organisms and their environments
What is the biosphere?
The portion of earth that supports life
What are biotic factors?
Living factors in an organism’s environment (eg. plants, animals, bacteria, insects, etc.)
What are abiotic factors?
The non living factors in an environment. (eg. water, temperature, air, soil, etc.)
What is a limiting factor?
Any biotic or abiotic factor that limits the numbers, reproduction, or distribution of organisms (eg. sunlight, water, space, climate, other species, etc.)
What is tolerance?
The ability of any organism to survive when exposed to abiotic or biotic factors.
What are the levels of organization in Earth?
- Organism
- Population
- Biological community
- Ecosystem
- Biome
- Biosphere
What is a population?
Individual organisms of the same species living at the same time in the same area
What is a biological community?
A group of populations that interact in the same geographic area at the same time
What is an ecosystem?
A biological community and all abiotic factors that affect it
What is a biome?
A large group of ecosystems that share the same climate and have similar types of biological communities.
What is a habitat?
An area where an organism lives
What is a niche?
The role an organism has in its environment. How the species meets its needs for food and shelter. How and where the species survives and reproduces.
What is predation?
The act of one organism consuming another organism for food.
When do organisms compete?
When organisms need to use the same resources at the same time.
What is symbiosis?
A relationship in which two organisms live together in close association.
What are the three kinds of symbiosis?
Mutualism
Commensalism
Parasitism
What is mutualism?
A relationship where two organisms of different species benefit from each other.
What is commensalism?
A relationship where one organism is benefitted and the other is neither helped nor harmed.
What is parasitism
A relationship where one organism benefits and the other is harmed
What is an autotroph?
An organism that captures energy from sunlight or inorganic substances
What is a heterotroph?
An organism that obtains energy by consuming other organisms
What is a herbivore?
A heterotroph that consumes only plants
What are carnivores?
Heterotrophs that prey on other heterotrophs
What are omnivores?
Heterotrophs that eat both plants and animals
What are detritivores?
Heterotrophs that CONSUME dead matter
What are decomposers?
BREAK DOWN dead matter
What is a trophic level?
Steps in a food web or chain. The first trophic level (autotrophs) make their own food from energy from the sun or chemicals, every trophic level after that gets their energy from the level before it.
What is a food chain?
A simple model that shows how energy flows in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
A model that shows all possible feeding relationships in an ecosystem
What is an ecological pyramid?
A diagram that represents each trophic level, showing the loss of energy and biomass in higher level.
What is biomass?
The total mass of living matter in each trophic level
What is matter?
Anything that takes up space and has mass. Cannot be created or destroyed.
What is a nutrient?
A chemical substance that an organism needs to perform life processes
What is the biogeochemical cycle?
The combination of biological, geological, and chemical processes that exchange matter through the biosphere
What are the steps of the water cycle?
Evaporation of water from bodies of water, soil, and plants
The water vapor rises and condenses around dust particles forming into clouds
The water droplets are too heavy and fall to the ground due to gravity in the form of precipitation
What is the oxygen and carbon cycle?
Photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and release oxygen, heterotrophs convert oxygen back to carbon dioxide in respiration and use carbohydrates for nutrients
What is the nitrogen cycle?
Bacteria in the soil, water, or roots of plants convert the nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form that plants can use (nitrogen fixation). Nitrogen enters the food web through these plants and organisms use it to make proteins and return it back to the soil through urine and decaying dead matter. Decomposers break down nitrogen from the organism into a nitrogen compound called ammonia. Organisms in the soil convert ammonia into a useable form of nitrogen, etc. Some bacteria in the soil change this nitrogen compound into the nitrogen gas and is released back into the air (denitrification)
What is the phosphorus cycle?
Two phosphorus cycles: the short-term and the long term
Short term: phosphorus is cycled from the soil to producers to consumers and returns to the soil in waste products or dead matter.
What is ammonia?
A nitrogen compound that is formed by decomposers when an organism dies.
What is denitrification?
The process performed by some bacteria that changes nitrogen compounds in the soil into nitrogen gas
