Ecology And Animal Behavior

Front 1

What is a population?

Back 1

A group of individuals ALL OF THE SAME SPECIES living in the same area.

Front 2

What is a community?

Back 2

A group of populations all living in the same area.

Front 3

What is an ecosystem?

Back 3

The organisms in a given area AND THEIR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT.

Front 4

What is a biosphere?

Back 4

All the regions of earth that contain living things; the top few meters of soil, the oceans, and lower ten kilometers of the atmosphere.

Front 5

What is a habitat?

Back 5

The type of place in which an organism usually lives. This can include other organisms that live there, physical and chemical characteristics.

Front 6

What is a niche?

Back 6

All of the living and nonliving resources of an environment used by a certain organism.

Front 7

What does a type I survivorship curve say about a population?

Back 7

Most of the individuals survive to middle age, then taper off (like humans).

Front 8

What does a type II survivorship curve say about a population?

Back 8

That death age is random, the likelihood of dying is the same for any age. Rodents exhibit this.

Front 9

What does a type III survivorship curve say about a population?

Back 9

In this type of population, most individuals will die young, few make it into adulthood.

Front 10

What is a biotic potential? What factors contribute to it?

Back 10

The maximum growth rate of a population under ideal conditions (unlimited resources and no growth restrictions). Factors are age of reproductive maturity, clutch size, reproductive frequency, reproductive lifetime, survivorship of offspring to reproductive maturity.

Front 11

What is a carrying capacity?

Back 11

The maximum number of individuals a habitat can support.

Front 12

What are limiting factors?

Back 12

Factors that prevent a population from reaching its biotic potential.

Front 13

What are density dependent factors?

Back 13

They are factors whose effect become more intense as the density goes up. Examples are disease and parasites, toxic waste products and the competition for food.

Front 14

What are density independent factors?

Back 14

Factors, like natural disasters, that don't get more severe with a greater population density.

Front 15

When does exponential growth occur in a population?

Back 15

When birth rate is higher than death rate.

Front 16

What is logistic growth in a population?

Back 16

When limiting factors restrict the size of population to the carrying capacity of the habitat.

Front 17

What is a population cycle?

Back 17

Fluctuations in the population size in response to changes in limiting factors.

Front 18

What is an opportunistic species and how is its growth described?

Back 18

It is a species that quickly moves into an area, quickly reproduces and quickly dies. That have rapid r-selected growth and require little parental nurture.

Front 19

What is a K selected species?

Back 19

A species whose numbers remain fairly constant at the carrying capacity. They reproduce in small numbers and require a lot of nurture.

Front 20

What is the competitive exclusion principle?

Back 20

It states that when two species seek to occupy the same niche, one will be more successful and the other will die out. No two species can coexist in the same niche.

Front 21

What is resource partitioning?

Back 21

Its a way for species to exist in very similar niches, that seem the same, but they way they acquire resources or the resources they acquire are slightly different. Ex. 5 types of warblers exist in the same tree, but eat different bugs at each level.

Front 22

What is niche shift or character displacement?

Back 22

Because of resource partitioning, selection allows for better acquisition of resources in a particular way resulting in a divergence of features or characteristics. Think of finches and their beaks being different to minimize competition.

Front 23

What is a fundamental niche vs a realized niche?

Back 23

Fundamental niche is the niche a species occupies with no competition. A realized niche is a niche occupied when competition IS present and doesn't overlap with the competing species for resources.

Front 24

What are the four types of predation?

Back 24

True predator (kills and eats), parasite (feeding on host tissues without killing it), parasitoid (lays eggs on a host, and the hachlings obtain nourishment eating the host tissues. Host eventually dies), herbivore: grains and sees (granivores, consuming all of the organism like a predator), or grazers/browsers (consuming only part of the organism).

Front 25

What are the three types of symbiosis?

Back 25

Mutualism (+,+)- Both species benefit
Commensalism (+,0)- One species benefits and the other is not really effected.
Parasitism (+.-) one benefits while the other is killed or harmed.

Front 26

What is coevolution?

Back 26

How prey seek ways to outdo the predators, while the predators respond by being stronger etc. and vice versa. It promotes the creation of the most elusive prey and most successful predators. Examples are secondary compounds that discourage their consumption, camouflage (can benefit prey or predator!), aposematic coloration (warning coloration), mimicry (mimicking those colors for example or all sharing the same warning sign, even in different species).

Front 27

What is a primary producer?

Back 27

It is an autotroph like plants, photosynthetic protists, cyanobacteria etc. that are eaten first.

Front 28

What is the primary consumer?

Back 28

Herbivores that eat primary producers and are then eaten.:( Sad.....

Front 29

What is a secondary consumer?

Back 29

Eats primary consumers (aka primary carnivore because it's the first the eat a live animal...)

Front 30

What are detritivores?

Back 30

Consumers that obtain energy by eating dead plants and animals. Decomposers like fungi and bacteria, nematodes, earthworms, crabs, vultures, jackals etc.

Front 31

What is the biogeochemical cycle for water? Reservoirs, assimilation and release incuded:

Back 31

Res: Oceans, air, groundwater, glaciers...
A: Plants absorb it from the soil, animals drink it or eat organisms that are mostly water...
Rel: Transpiration and decomposition

Front 32

What is the biogeochemical cycle for carbon? Reservoirs, assimilation and release incuded:

Back 32

Res: atmosphere as CO2, fossil fuels, peat, durable organic material such as cellulose.
A: Plants use CO2 in photosynthesis, animals consume plants or other animals that have consumed plants.
Rel: Respiration and decomposition, and burning wood etc.

Front 33

What is the biogeochemical cycle for nitrogen? Reservoirs, assimilation and release incuded:

Back 33

Res: Atmosphere (N2), soil (NH4+/NH3, NO2-/NO3-)
A: Plants absorb it as NH4+ or NO3-. Animals eat them.
FIXATION: N2 to NH4+ by nitrogen fixing prokaryotes in soil and root nodules, N2 to NO3- by lightening and UV radiation.
Rel: Denitrifying bacteria convert NO3- back to N2, detrivorous bacteria convert organic compounds back to NH4+. Animals secrete uric acid, or urea.

Front 34

What is the biogeochemical cycle for phosphorous? Reservoirs, assimilation and release incuded:

Back 34

Res: Rocks and ocean sediments.
A: Plants absorb inorganic PO43- (phosphate) from the soil. Animals eat them and other animals that HAVE eaten them.
Rel: Decomposition and excretion in waste products.

Front 35

What is a deme?

Back 35

A local, stable, interbreeding population of the same species sharing a distinct gene pool.

Front 36

What is the difference between a Savanna, a temperate grassland and a Tropical Rain Forest?

Back 36

Both Savannas and rain forests are tropical so they have high temperatures. Savannas receive less rain fall so are grasslands with scattered trees. A temperate grassland is slightly cooler than a savanna, but receives less rainfall, like the North American Prairie.

Front 37

What is the environment of a temperate deciduous forest?

Back 37

Warm summers, cold winters with moderate precipitation. The deciduous trees shed their leaves in the winter.

Front 38

What are taigas?

Back 38

Coniferous forests with cold winters and snowfall.

Front 39

What makes a tundra different from a taiga?

Back 39

The winters are so cold the ground freezes, and only the upper soil thaws in the summer leaving permafrost and soggy soil on top.

Front 40

What is an instinct?

Back 40

A behavior that is innate or inherited.

Front 41

What is a fixed action pattern?

Back 41

Innate behaviors that follow an innate unvarying pattern, in response to a specific stimulus. The behavior is carried out even if the intent can no longer be fulfilled (graylag goose)

Front 42

What is imprinting?

Back 42

A program for acquiring a specific behavior only if an appropriate stimulus is presented during the critical period or time window. The behavior is then irreversible. Whatever moving object a goose sees in the first day of life is considered its mother.

Front 43

What is associative learning or classical conditioning?

Back 43

When an animal learns that two events are connected. Like exchanging a normal stimulus for a substitute stimulus. Pavlov is an example.

Front 44

What is trial and error learning or operant condidtioning?

Back 44

It's a form of associative learning where an animal connects its own behavior with an environmental response. The response can be desirable or undesirable/ Skinner taught his rats to push a lever or avoid being shocked.

Front 45

What is spatial learning?

Back 45

Another for of associative learning in which an animal associates attributes of a location with the rewards gained from being able to return to a location. Pine cones and wasps getting to their nests.

Front 46

What is habituation?

Back 46

A learned behavior that allows an animal to disregard useless stimuli.

Front 47

What is insight?

Back 47

When an animal, having no previous observation or experience, performs a behavior that generates a desirable outcome? Basically problem solving!

Front 48

What is observational learning?

Back 48

The ability to learn by seeing.

Front 49

Associative learning and innate behavior acquisition differ because...

Back 49

Associative learning is in response to something new or "novel" and innate behavior is in response to something that has become "expected" through evolution.

Front 50

What is the difference between kinesis and taxis?

Back 50

Kinesis involves random, undirected movement, like finding bugs under a rock and seeing them scurry when they are in an unfavorable environment, meaning they spend most of their time in favorable environments. Taxis is directed and in response to stimulus, like moths to a light or sharks toward blood.

Front 51

What is the difference between a releaser pheromone and a primer pheromone?

Back 51

A releaser causes an immediate and specific behavioral change and a primer causes a physiological change.

Front 52

What is a foraging behavior?

Back 52

A technique, such as traveling in packs and using search images, to maximize the amount of food eaten an minimize the amount of energy expended and the risk of being eaten.

Front 53

What is agonistic behavior?

Back 53

Aggression and submission resulting from competition for food, mates or territory. Most are ritualized so they are fast and not too violent.

Front 54

Why is a dominance hierarchy useful?

Back 54

Set power relationships, minimize fighting for food or mates. Ex. pecking order.

Front 55

What is an altruistic behavior?

Back 55

One that reduced the fitness of one individual to save others. Ex making a sound when you see a predator.

Front 56

What is mullerian mimicry?

Back 56

When two harmful species share the same common characteristics (color).

Front 57

What is batesian mimicry?

Back 57

When a harmless species betters its chances at survival by mimicking the appearance of a harmful species.