Topic 8 Flashcards
What is community?
Biological unit consisting of all the populations living in a specific area at a specific time.
What is a population?
Members of one species living in a specific habitat at a particular time.
How do organisms interact with their physical environment?
Organisms take oxygen water and food, release materials such as carbon dioxide and urine
How do organisms interact with their biological environment?
Members of the same species, intraspecific, or with members of different species, interspecific.
What is competition?
Competition occurs when one organism or one species is more efficient than another in gaining access to a limited resource, such as light, water or territory
What is parasitism?
Relationship in which one organism depends on another living organism to obtain its nutrients.
What is a predator prey relationship?
A form of integration within a community that involved the eating of one species, predator, by another species, prey
What is mutualism?
Relationship in which both partners benefit.
What is commensalism?
Association between two species in a community in which one benefits and the second is unaffected.
What is symbiosis?
A prolonged association between two species which there is a benefit to at least one partner.
What is the abundance or density?
The number of individuals of a given species per unit area
What does distribution refer to?
The pattern or spread of numbers of a population over space and can be described as uniform, random or clumped.
What does age structure or composition refer to?
Sex ratio, population, fertility and age
What are primary ecological events that affect population size?
Births
Deaths
Immigration
Migration
What secondary ecological factors affect population size?
Biotic, predators and disease
Abiotic, weather
What are density dependent factors?
Events that change in their severity as the size of a population changes.
What are density independent factors?
Factors which affect all individuals in a population, regardless of the size of the population
What is carrying capacity?
The maximum population size that a habitat can support in a sustained manner
What is r selection?
Directed to quantity of offspring,
Populations of some species are short lived and produce very large numbers of offspring
Species that reproduce through this quick and many strategy out their energy into reproduction
What is k selection?
Populations of a species that produce small numbers of offspring at less frequent intervals, species that use this slower and fewer strategy put their energy into the care, survival and development of their offspring, r selection - quality of offspring
