Organism Distrubution Flashcards
What is a habitat?
The place where an organism lives
Why do organisms live in different places in a habitat?
Their environment varies (light and shade)
What is the distribution of an organism?
Where an organism is found
Why might an organism be more common in one area than another?
Environmental factors
What are the two ways to study the distribution of an organism?
Measuring how common an organism is in two sample areas (quadrants)
Measuring how the distribution changes across an area (transects)
What are 5 environmental factors, affected distribution?
Temperature, Availability of water, Availability of oxygen and CO2, Availability of nutrients, Availability of light
How do you find the population size from quadrats?
Multiply the mean number of organisms per m^2 with the total area in (m^2) of the habitat
What is the mean?
Total Number / How many there are
What is the median?
Middle value (when in order)
What is the mode?
Most common value
Why might transects be used instead of quadrats?
To see if an organism becomes more/less common across a habitat
What are reliable results?
Results that are repeatable and reproducible
How can you make sure your results are reliable?
Take a large sample size
What are valid results?
Results that are reliable and answer the original question
How can you get valid results?
Control all other variables
Use random samples
