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196 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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The study of how organisms interact with other organisms and how they influence--or are influenced--by their physical environment |
Ecology
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A group of populations found within a given locality, plus the inanimate environment around those populations
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Ecosystem
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The total number of a single species of organism found in a given ecosystem
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Population
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An individual of a particular species
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Organism
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A distinct group of individuals that are able to mate, producing viable offspring
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Species
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Anatomical features
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Morphology
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Populations that interact with each other in a particular ecosystem
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Community
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The part of the Earth that includes all living things
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Biosphere
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The ground
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Lithosphere
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The physical place where a species lives, including all the factors that will support its life and reproduction
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Habitat
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Availability of food, competition, predator-prey relationships, symbiosis, and overpopulation
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Biotic factors of a habitat
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Weather, temperature, soil features, fire, pollution, sunlight, availability of oxygen, water conditions, temperature, and so on
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Abiotic features of a habitat
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The role a species plays within the ecosystem, including its physical requirements, biological activities, and place in the food chain.
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Niche
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Supports life throughout the environment; also called the Food Chain
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Energy Cycle
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Major biochemical cycles important to the health of ecosystems
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Water cycle
Carbon cycle Nitrogen cycle Phosphorus cycle |
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The system whereby the substances needed for life are recycled and transported throughout the environment
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Biogeochemical
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A term for carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and nitrogen, reflecting how they are used in large quantities by living things
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Macronutrients
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Elements used in trace quantities in organisms
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Micronutrients
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A system describing the energy flow through the entire ecosystem, in one direction (from producers to decomposers)
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Food chain
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Typical energy flow of the food chain
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Producers --> consumers --> decomposers
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In the food chain, photosynthetic organisms are ___________
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Producers
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Bacteria, fungi, and some animals that recycle the organic material found in dead plants and animals, back into the food chain
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Decomposers
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Steps in the food chain are also known as these
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Trophic levels
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Numerous food chains that interact in various ways
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Food web
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Process of water vapor circulating through the biosphere
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Hydrologic cycle
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A gas that reflects radiation from the Earth's surface back toward the Earth, thus trapping heat
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Greenhouse gas
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The recycling of nitrogen through the biosphere
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Nitrogen cycle
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Process of combining nitrogen with either hydrogen or oxygen to make it available for absorption by the roots of plants
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Nitrogen fixing
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Bacteria that live in the soil and perform the task of combining gaseous nitrogen with hydrogen, forming ammonium ions that plants can absorb and use
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Nitrogen fixing bacteria
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Some plants can't use ammonia and so they use these
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Nitrates
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A process where certain bacteria break down ammonia into nitrites and other bacteria convert nitrites into nitrates
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Nitrification
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The process in which bacteria and fungi decompose dead plant material and animal matter into ammonia
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Ammonification
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Breaking down excess nitrates to release nitrogen gas back into the air (performed by various bacteria and fungi)
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Dentrification
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Route by which carbon is obtained, used, and recycled by living things
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Carbon cycle
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A name for the products of organic matter that is left to decay under conditions of heat and pressure
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Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas)
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The recycling of solid phosphorous through the biosphere
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Phosphorous cycle
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Phosphorous is only found in solid form within ______ and ______
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Rocks
Soil |
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Erosion helps spread this mineral through water to plants, and then is passed up through the food chain
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Phosphorous
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How new phosphorous enters the cycle
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Undersea sedimentary rocks thrust up during plate shifting, exposing new phosphorous to erosion
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Birth rate
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Natality
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Death rate
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Mortality
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The curve expressing exponential population growth, where there is no environmental or social limit on population size and the rate of growth accelerates over time
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J-curve
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The curve expression logistic population growth that reflects limiting factors on population, where growth accelerates to a point and then slows down.
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S-curve
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Factors that determine how much a particular population within a community will be able to grow
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Limiting factors
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A dynamic balance achieved within an ecosystem functioning at its optimum level
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Homeostasis
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Number of individuals of a particular species living in a particular area
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Population density
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Abiotic limiting factors are also known as these, because they do not relate to population density.
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Density-independent factors
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Biotic limiting factors such as population growth issues and interactions between species are also called ____________
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Density-dependent factors
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Term for the maximum level the population may reach at which it will continue to thrive in the given environment
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Carrying capacity
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The total area occupied by a species
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Range
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Population density is typically greatest in this part of a species' range
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Center
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When species move in or out of a particular area over time
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Dispersion
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Permanent one-way movement out of the original range of a species
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Emigration
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Permanent one-way movement into a new range
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Immigration
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Temporary movement out of one range into another, and back
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Migration
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Two or more species living in the same area with overlapping niches are said to be in __________
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Competition
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The situation that arises when a species is wiped out in an area due to competition
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Competitive exclusion
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One of the most important features of an ecosystem, describing the organisms that eat and get eaten by each other
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Predator-prey relationship
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A term for the relationship between two species that interact with each other within the same range
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Symbiosis
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A type of symbiosis where one species is neither helped nor harmed while it inhibits the growth of another
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Amensalism
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A form of symbiosis where both species benefit
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Mutualism
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A form of symbiosis where one species benefits and the other is harmed
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Parasitism
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When the entire population of a species is eliminated
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Extinction
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To avoid extinction, the survival of a population is dependent on maintaining ______ size
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Minimal viable population
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The characteristics of a specified community, including the types of species that dominate, major climatic trends of the region, and whether the community is open or closed
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Community structure
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A community whose populations occupy essentially the same range with very similar distributions of density
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Closed community
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Sharp boundaries to closed communities (such as the shore of a pond aquatic ecosystem)
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Ecotones
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A community where the species are more widely distributed and animals may actually travel in and out of the area
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Open community
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When one community completely replaces another over time, in a given area
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Succession
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The first populations to move back into a disturbed ecosystem (usually a hardy species that can survive bleak conditions)
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Pioneer communities
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The community that stabilizes after succession ends
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Climax community
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An ecosystem that is generally defined by its climate characteristics
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Biome
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Biomes that exist on land
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Terrestrial biomes
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The study of how photosynthetic organisms and animals are distributed in a particular location, plus the history of their distribution in the past
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Biogeography
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A subdiscipline of biogeography of particular interest to ecologists because it involves a fairly closed system
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Island biogeography
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When species arrive on an island by sea or by air, they are said to have arrived by _________
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Natural dispersal processes
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Species that inhabit a given ecosystem because humans transported them there are referred to as ________
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Introduced species
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Islands that support numerous habitats are likely to have this
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A wider diversity of species
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Larger, older islands generally will support more species, except in this condition
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When the island's soil has eroded and lost its nutrients
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The study of how animals act and react within their environments
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Ethology
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Behaviors that exist from birth and are genetic in origin
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Innate behaviors
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Another name for innate behaviors
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Instincts
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Behaviors that all individuals of a species perform in the same way
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Stereotyped behaviors
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Stereotyped behaviors that are directional responses either toward or away from a stimulus
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Taxes
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Stereotyped behaviors that are changes in speed of movement in response to stimuli
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Kineses
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Stereotyped behaviors that are an automatic movement of a body part in response to a stimulus
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Reflexes
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Behaviors that are complex but stereotyped in response to a stimulus
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Fixed action patterns (FAP)
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Fixed action patterns are pre-programmed responses to this type of stimulus
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Releaser or sign stimulus
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Behaviors that may be based in genetics but that require learning
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Learned behaviors
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The three basic types of learned behaviors in animals
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Conditioning
Habituation Imprinting |
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The scientist who demonstrated classic conditioning by training dogs to salivate when they heard a bell ring
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Ivan Pavlov
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The scientist who demonstrated learning that happens through reinforcement of good behaviors
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B.F. Skinner
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A learned behavior where the organism produces less and less response as a stimulus is repeated, without a subsequent negative or positive action
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Habituation
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A learned behavior that develops in a critical or sensitive period of the animal's lifespan, usually involving learning a new releaser for an established fixed action pattern
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Imprinting
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The behavioral scientist who studied imprinting
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Konrad Lorenz
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Behavior patterns that take into account other individuals
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Social behavior
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An area where an animal spends most of their time
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Home range
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An area within the home range that the individual will defend as his own, implying recognition that other individuals exist
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Territory
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These behaviors often rely on complex interactions of the endocrine, nervous, and musculoskeletal systems
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Sexual and mating behaviors
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An organization of individuals in a population in which tasks are divided, in order for the group to work together
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Society
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The idea that societies of primates are built around
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Dominance
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This trait tends to serve the needs of the society as a whole, in addition to the individual's own needs (exhibited by social animals)
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Altruism
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A theory that proposes there are progressive demographic time periods of human population growth
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Demographic transition
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One of the most famous human population scientists, who, in the 1780s, calculated exponential human population growth
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Thomas Malthus
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What lowers the infant mortality rate in an urban society
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Biomedical progress
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The relative numbers of individuals of specific ages within the population
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Age composition
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A complex array of implications to population growth have come from this technological advancement
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Genetic engineering
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One of the profound effects on the biosphere from human population growth
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Environmental pollution
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Active human intervention of recycling energy, water, nutrients, and chemicals, to encourage natural cyclic processes within the biosphere to maintain a viable balance
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Management of resources
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Gradual change of characteristics within a population, producing a change in species over time
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Evolution
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Charles Darwin's theory that the individuals who win the competition for resources reproduce, and thus pass their successful traits onto the next generation, retaining the competitive edge
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Natural selection
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A discredited theory proposing that organisms acquire traits over their life span that equip them to survive within their environment, and then pass these on to their offspring
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Lamarckien theory of acquired characeristics
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A botanist who developed the classification system for organisms and who speculated on the origin of/relationships between species in the 1700s
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Carolus Linneaus
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Darwin's name for the competition for resources that develops once the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is reached
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Struggle for existence
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Current evolutionary theory builds on Darwin's concept of natural selection with additions and confirmations of _________
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Genetics
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The modern synthesis of evolutionary theory focuses on the concept that evolution was a process of adaptive change in traits among populations over this length of time
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Thousands or hundreds of thousands of generations
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The entire collection of genes within a given population
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Gene pool
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Three mechanisms that drive the changing of traits over time in a population
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1. Differential reproduction
2. Mutation 3. Genetic drift |
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Evolution does not occur through changes from individual to individual, but rather as the ________ changes through different mechanisms
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Gene pool
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Changes in the frequency of particular genes within a population due to chance fluctuations, which reduce the genetic variety
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Genetic drift
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Introduction of new genes via immigrants from other populations
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Gene migration
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The law describing how random mating that occurs within a population (one that exists in equilibrium with its environment) results in gene frequencies and genotype ratios remaining constant from generation to generation
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Hardy-Weinberg Law of Equilibrium
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Conditions that must be met for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium to occur
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No differential reproduction must be taking pace
No migration No mutation No selection No genetic drift |
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Why the Hardy-Weinberg Law is important to the evolutionary process
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It shows that alleles that have no current selective value will be retained in a population over time
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What must happen for a new species to develop
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Substantial genetic changes must occur between population which prohibit them from breeding
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The species development that can occur when two populations are geographically isolated from each other and experience genetic drift and/or mutation over time
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Allpatric speciation
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The species change that occurs when a population develops members with a genetic difference that prevents successful reproduction with the original species
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Sympatric speciation
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A rapid evolutionary radiation characterized by an increase in the morphological and ecological diversity of a single, rapidly diversifying lineage
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Adaptive radiation
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A scientific model that proposes that adaptations of species arise suddenly and rapidly, triggered by environmental forces causing a short period of quick mutation and change
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Punctuated equilibrium
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Evolutionary sientists still do not agree to the degree with which any combination of theories is responsible for __________
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Speciation
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Modern theory of evolution assumes that in order for life to arise on earth, organic molecules such as these would need to have formed from the available chemicals
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Amino acids
Sugars Acids Bases |
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A theory of the origin of life proposing that through a build-up of heat energy, the synthesis of simple organic molecules became possible, and these collected into the primordial soup
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Oparin Hypothesis
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An evolutionary researcher of the 1960s who proved that ultraviolet light may induce the formation of dipeptides from amino acids, and that polyphosphoric acid could increase the yield of polymers
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Sidney Fox
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A researcher who demonstrated that small amounts of guanine formed from the thermal polymerization of amino acids, and that adenine and ribose could be synthesized from long-term treatment of reducing atmospheric gases with an electrical current
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Cyril Ponnamperuma
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A scientist who demonstrated support for the Oparin Hypothesis by successfully simulating the conditions of early Earth history and producing complex organic molecules
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Stanley Miller
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The sudden appearance of multitudes of differentiated animal forms in fossil records, beginning about 570 million years ago
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Cambrian explosion
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The period (505 to 440 million years ago) known for the development of land plants and the appearance of the first vertebrates
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Ordovician Period
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The period (440 to 410 million years ago) marked by widespread colonization of landmasses by plants and animals
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Silurian period
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Structures that exist in two different species because they share a common ancestry
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Homologous structures
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Structures that are similar because of their common function, although they do not share a common ancestry
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Analogous structures
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Analogous structures are the product of this type of evolution
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Convergent evolution
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Several _________ have wiped out 95% of the species of their time, opening up massive ecological niches that encouraged evolution of multitudes of new species
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Extinction events
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A branch of bipedal primates gave rise to the first true homonids (human ancestors) about _______ years ago
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4.5 million
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Homo erectus, a species that walked upright and had a brain about the size of modern humans, is thought to extend back ______ years ago
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1.8 million
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Homo sapiens (modern humans) are thought to have emerged approximately _____ years ago
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100,000
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The characteristics that differentiate organisms that are better suited to develop in an ecosystem, vs. those that only thrive in an established equilibrium
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Life history strategies
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Organisms with these life strategies tend to have certain traits that allow them to adapt in a new environment, short maturation times, rapidly reproducing, with short life spans and no parenting of young
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Opportunistic or r-selected
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Species with these life traits tend to have longer life spans and maturation times, lower mortality rates, producing fewer but longer-living offspring that they tend to parent. They typically dominate in varying ecosystems
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Equilibreal or K-selected
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This kind of trait may actually decrease the fitness of the individual bearing it even while it increases the fitness of the community
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Altruism
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This process is believed to influence the preservation and proliferation of altruistic traits
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Kin Selection
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The organization of living things into groups based on morphology or genetics
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Taxonomy
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The botanist who first developed the current methods of taxonomy
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Carolus Linneas
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Binomial nomenclature used for species identification
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Genus and species
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Seven basic levels of the taxonomy of living things
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Kingdom
Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species |
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Three domains of the most modern classification system
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Archaea
Eubacteria Eukaryota |
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Three domains of life
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Eubacteria
Archaea Eukaryota |
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Type of organism known for thriving in extreme habitats, such as acidic, alkaline, salty, and volcanic areas
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Archaeans
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Small eukaryotic organisms that live in water
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Protists, members of the kingdom Protista
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Forms protists can take
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Unicellular
Colonial Multicellular (but not complex) |
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Single-celled organisms that ingest their food and swim about actively, leading them to be named for "first animal"
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Protozoans
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When did oxygen develop in the Earth's atmosphere?
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2.4 billion years ago
(or 3 billion with more current speculation) |
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When did eukaryotic cells first develop?
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1.6 - 2.1 billion years ago
(stem eukaryotes: 2.7 billion) |
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A form of symbiosis where one benefits and the other is not significantly harmed or helped
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Commensalism
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Who came up with the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium?
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Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould
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When natural selection acts to remove variants of a particular trait from nature
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Stabilizing selection
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What kind of energy would a closed ecosystem need?
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Light energy
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These two coastal biomes are characterized by long, hot summers and short, rainy winters, and they possess fire-resistant plants than can quickly reseed after fires come through
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Chaparral and Savanna
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How many kingdoms of prokaryotes are there?
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One (monera)
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How is the flow of energy through a food web characterized?
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There is a step-like decline of available energy from one trophic level to the next as organisms use energy for activities such as growth and reproduction
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Largest phylum in the animal kingdom
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Arthropoda
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The organisms in this kingdom are all prokaryotes
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Monera
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An organism that can survive with or without oxygen
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Facultative anaerobe
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Organisms that only survive in the absence of oxygen
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Obligative anaerobes
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Organisms that require oxygen to survive
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Obligative aerobes
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Two distinct groups of Monera
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Eubacteria ("true" bacteria)
Archaea (formerly archaeabacteria) |
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This kingdom consists of a diverse group of eukaryotic organisms that don't fit into any of the other kingdoms
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Protista
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Algae, protozoa, and fungus-like organisms are all examples of these
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Protists
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The organisms in this kingdom grow as filaments called hypha
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Fungi
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Cell walls of fungi consist of this nitrogen-containing polysaccharide
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Chitin
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Fungi are dominantly _______ except for temporary structures that they form for sexual reproduction
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Haploid
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Members of this kingdom are the producers within the food chain
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Plantae
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The dominant generation of all plants, except for Bryophyta
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Sporophyte
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Members of this kingdom are all multicellular and heterotrophic, with most of them undergoing a period of embryonic development during which 2 or 3 layers of tissues form
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Anamalia
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This anamalia phylum represents the sponges
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Porifera, from Latin porus "pore" and ferre "to bear"
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Hydrozoans, jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals are all considered members of this phylum
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Cnidaria, from the Greek word "cnidos", which means "stinging nettle"
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Three kinds of flatworms make up this phylum
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Platyhelminthes, from the Greek platy, meaning "flat" and helminth, meaning worm
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Roundworms comprise this phylum
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Nematoda, from the Greek meaning "thread-like"
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Multicellular, often microscopic filter-feeders that possess a complete digestive tract
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Rotifera, from the Greek, meaning "wheel-bearer"
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Snails, bivalves, octopuses, and squids are examples of this phylum, where most members have shells
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Mollusca, meaning thin-shelled, soft
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Segmented worms, such as leeches, earthworms, and polychaete worms are all part of this phylum
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Annelida, from Latin anellus "little ring"
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Spiders, insects, crustaceans, and related organisms are part of this phylum
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Arthropods, from the Greek, meaning "jointed feet"
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Some arthropods are born as ______, while others start life as ______
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nymphs
larvae |
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This phylum encompasses sea stars, sea urchins, and sand dollars
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Echinodermata, deriving from Greek terms meaning "spiny skin"
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Vertebrates, along with several closely-related invertebrates, make up this phylum
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Chordata, from the Latin meaning "cord"
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This biome is characterized by coniferous forests and cold, snowy winters
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Taiga
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A biome subject to winters so cold that the ground freezes, with deeper soil remaining permanently frozen even in summer
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Tundra
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