Organisms to Ecosystems Exam 5 Flashcards
Sexual selection
Occurs when individuals with certain inherited characteristics are more likely than others of the same sex to obtain mates.
Balancing selection
Occurs when variation is preserved at a locus, maintaining two or more phenotypes in a population.
Frequency-dependent selection
A form of balancing election in which the fitness of a phenotype depends on its frequency in the population.
Heterozygote advantage
A form of balancing election in which heterozygotes for a particular locus have greater fitness than both homozygotes.
Sick-cell disease is caused by a mutation at a single allele. This sickle-cell allele is maintain in some populations through _________.
Heterozygote advantage
Community ecology
Examines how interactions between different species affect their distribution and abundance.
Community
Includes populations of different species living in close enough proximity to interact with one another.
Trophic structure
Ecological communities are characterized by. attributes such. as their diversity and the feeding relation ships among species.
Species diversity
Includes the total variety of different organisms present.
What are the two components of species diversity?
Species richness and relative abundance.
Shannon diversity index
(H) is used to calculate the diversity of a community based on both species richness and relative abundance.
Introduced species
Organisms that have been moved to new regions outside of their original range.
Trophic structure
Describes the feeding relationships between organisms in a community.
Energy is transferred from ________ to __________ to _____, ______,______ to decomposers.
Primary producers
Primary consumers
Secondary
Tertiary
Quaternary consumers
What is an example of a primary producer?
Plants and other autotrophs
What is an example of a primary consumer?
Herbivores
What are examples of secondary, tertiary, and quaternary consumers?
Carnivores
Food chain
Trophic Level
Position of an organism in the food chain, referred to as their trophic level
Food-web
Multiple food chains are linked together to form a food web.
Bottom-up model
For community organization states that lower. trophic levels have influence on higher trophic levels but not vice nersa.
Foundation species
Have large effects within their communities because of their high abundance and often large size. They often provide habitat or food for other species.
Keystone species
Have large effects within their communities although. they are not usually abundant. Often they have important ecological roles that. influence community structure.
Ecosystem engineers
Influence their communities by changing the physical environment.
Pathogens
Disease causing organisms. They can change community structure dramatically.
Zoonotic Pathogens
Transferred from other animals to humans, sometimes. through an intermediate species referred to as a vector.
Vector
Intermediate species that transfer zoonotic pathogens to humans.
Interspecific interactions
Relationships between individuals of two or more species in the community. Positive, negative, or neutral effects on the survival and reproduction of the species involved.
Competition
Occurs when individuals compete for resources that limit survival and reproduction of both species (-/-).
Competitive exclusion
When the inferior competitor is eventually eliminated from the area because limited resources prevent them from coexisting.
Ecological niche
The specific set of biotic and abiotic resources an organism uses in its environment.
Resource partitioning
Two or more ecologically similar species can coexist in communities if they exhibit resource partitioning- differentiation of their niches.
Character displacement
Can occur when traits diverge in geographically overlapping populations of two species compared o populations of those species living in different areas.
Fundamental niche
The set of conditions that a species could potentially occupy.
Realized niche
The portion of the fundamental niche where it actually occurs (competition can lead to a different realized niche).
Exploitation
A term for any +/- interaction in which individuals of one species benefit by feeding on individuals of another species.
Predation
A predator killing and eating its prey.
(+/-)