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137 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Ecology |
The study of how organisms interact with their enviroment |
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Ecology centers on what? |
The understanding distribution and abundance of organisms |
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What are the five levels of ecology? |
1. Organisms 2. Populations 3. Communities 4. Ecosystems 5. Global
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Organismal ecology |
lifetime of process of an individual organism |
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Population Ecology |
group of individuals in a given area at the same time |
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Population |
group of individuals of the same species in a given area at the same time |
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What do population ecologist study? |
how numbers and distribution of individuals in a population change over time |
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Organismal ecology deal with? |
The different morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptions allowing individual organisms to live successfully in a particular area |
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Community ecology |
How species interact with one another within a particular area |
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What do community ecologist study? |
The study nature and and consequences of interactions between species and consequences of those interactions |
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ecosystem |
all organisms in particular region, along with abiotic components |
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Ecosystem ecologists study what? |
They study how nutrients and energy more among and between organisms and surrounding atmosphere and soil or water |
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Ecosystem ecology |
look at nutrients and energy cycle through enviroment and flowing processes |
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How much of earth is biotic? |
20km in the biosphere (.002%) |
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Global ecology |
encompassed the biosphere |
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Why is the global ecology field growing so rapidly? |
Because they scramble to quantify effects of human impacts on the biosphere |
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Conservation Biology |
the effort to study to preserve, study, and restore threatened populations, communities, and ecosystems |
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The doctors of ecology |
Conservation biologists |
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biogeography |
the study of how organisms are distributed geographically |
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Distribution and abundance of organisms |
determined by interactions with biotic and abiotic environments |
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Why is is range of every species on earth limited? |
Because no organism can live everywhere due to fitness tradeoffs |
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Impact of species are often limited by interactions of ________ factors. |
Biotic |
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What are some biotic factors that can effect the distribution of a species? |
competition, reproductive requirements, and parasitism |
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What is the first factor to consider in species distribution? |
the history of dispersal |
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Dispersal |
movement of an individual from place of birth to location where it lives and breeds as adult |
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What is prevented by physical barriers or impacted by changing landforms and oceans? |
dipersal |
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What is the Wallace Line an example of? |
Dispersal |
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What are some influences from humans?
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1000s of plants, birds, insects, and other species across physical barriers
Flu Strains or different viruses |
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Exotic species can become _____________ if they spread too rapidly and eliminate native species |
Invasive species |
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Climate |
prevailing long-term weather conditions found in an area |
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Weather |
specific short-term weather atmospheric conditions of temperature, precipitation, sunlight, and wind |
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Hadley Cell |
A major cycle in the global air circulation responsible for the high moisture at the equator and the dry air near 30 degrees |
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Where is the dense hot-dry air located? |
At the 30 degrees longitude |
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Where is the hot-moist air located? |
It is located around the equator |
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Why are the tropics warm but the poles cold? |
The areas around the equator receive the the most amount of sunlight per unit area because they have a better angle f sunlight. |
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What happens when the angle is low or high? |
If the angle is low it spreads out the sunlight. If the angle is high it is more direct making the sunlight more intense. |
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What causes seasonality in weather? |
The tilt in the earths axis |
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Why do oceans have a moderating influence on temperature? |
Water has a high specific heat making the water warmer the air or colder than the air in the fall and spring. |
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What is the rain shadow effect? |
winds from the ocean cool and drop precipitation on one side of the mountain and not the other side, creating high deserts |
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What are regional effects of mountains and oceans? |
Broad patterns of climate are dictated by global heating patterns, Hadley Cells, and seasonality overlain by regional effects |
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Moist air blows onshore, rises over mountains, air cool, and rain falls on the west side of the mountain. The east has dry air and creates desert conditions. What is this an example of? |
Rain shadow effect |
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Each biome is associated with what 4 set of conditions? |
Temperature, Moisture, Sunlight, and Wind |
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Biomes |
major grouping of plants and animal communities defined by dominate vegetation type |
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Temperature and moisture influence what? |
net primary productivity (NPP) |
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What does NPP represent? |
The organic matter available as food for other organisms |
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How do they measure NPP in a terrestrial environment? |
the aboveground biomass |
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When is photosynthesis and plant growth maximized? |
when temperatures and conditions are wet |
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Anthropogenic Biomes |
Theses are human created biomes |
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Humans are directly affecting what? |
The distribution of terrestrial ecosystems by physically changing landscape |
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How much of ice-free land shows direct alteration from humans? |
75% |
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Natural biomes are ________ while anthropogenic biomes are ________ |
Increasing, Decreasing |
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Farming, logging, and urban development are examples of what? |
Anthropogenic biomes being created |
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Give 5 characteristics of Tropical Wet Forests |
-extremely biodiverse -the most productive (hot and moist) -almost no seasonality -plants do not drop leaves -lowest rainfall is more than desert highs -more vegetation/animals in 1 acre than MI |
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Give 5 characteristics of Subtropic Deserts |
-VERY DRY -plants + animals here must be adapted to this weather -low productivity -low diversity -ex: Egypt daytime 130, nighttime 40
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Give 5 characteristics of Temperate Grasslands |
-midwest, praires -very few trees; small shrubs/ grasses -dry, fire prone -very fertile, black soil -have seasonality
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Give 5 characteristics of Temperate Forests |
-this is here in Michigan -drop leaves in fall, go dormant -have seasonality -diversity and production are in mid ranges -production mostly happens in spring/summer |
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Give 5 characteristics of Boreal Forests |
-Northern part of Canada -Slow growing; mostly evergreen -diversity and productivity is low -tough place to live -COLD; low precipitation -water it has does not evaporate
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Give 5 characteristics of Arctic Tundra |
-COLD ALL THE TIME -low rainfall, water doesn't evaporate -frozen ground; short rooted -perma-frost -methane gas in permafrost |
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Global Climate Change is caused primarily from what?
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methane, CO2 production, and more |
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Who is causing our world to rapidly change? |
We are |
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What are 4 primary tools to predict impacts of global warming? |
Simulation studies, observation studies, , historical studies, and experiments |
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What do the simulation studies look at? |
look at local weather patterns and future simulations |
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What do the Observational studies look at? |
fixed sites that measure real time sites of their temperatures and pollution |
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What do the historical studies look at? |
look at the bottom of lakes for pollen, ice core, and carbon dating in rocks |
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What does the temperature manipulation study look at? |
It looks at the methane gas released in the arctic tundra when the permafrost melts They found that the overall diversity decreases because the increase in temperature |
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Aquatic Biomes have four key factors that affect the abundance and distribution. What are they? |
Salinity, Water depth, Water flow, and Nutrient availability |
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In the four key factors of the Aquatic Biomes, what is the limiting factor? |
Nutrient Availability |
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What is salinity? What does it affect? |
It is how salty something is. It impacts their water balances in their osmosis |
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What is water depth? |
It is how deep in the water it is compared to the amount of light able to travel into the water. |
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turbidity |
the amount of light that can shine through/ penetrate the water |
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Water _______and _______ light, so the amount and type of wavelengths available change dramatically as water depth _____, as so does light intensity. |
1.absorbs 2. scatters 3. Increases |
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What wavelengths are usually seen underwater? What are not absorbed in water? |
Blue is usually seen while red is not absorbed |
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What is water flow? |
the rate of water movement and H20 depth key physical factors that shape environments in aquatic ecosystems |
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What is a critical factor in aquatic ecosystems because it presents physical challenge? |
H20 movement |
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What tend to be washed away in moving waters? Where do they end up? |
nutrients that then float to the bottom to the still waters |
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nutrient levels limit the growth rates in what? |
photosynthetic organisms |
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rocky intertidal |
tide pools along the edge of rocky beaches |
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community structure |
the composition and abundance of the different types of organisms present |
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ecological community |
group of species that live together and interact with eachother |
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dominant species |
one species that is more abundant in number or biomass than another |
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Producers |
algae/ plants use energy from the fun to produce their own food rather than consuming other organisms |
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food chain |
the progression of what eats what |
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food web diagram |
diagram that connects different species and food chains together |
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intertidal community |
comprised of organisms living in the area covered by water at high tide and exposed to air at low tide |
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competitive dominance hierarchy |
diagram illustrating the superior competitors in a community |
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keystone species |
the presence of a single species controls community structure even though that species has regularly low abundance |
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Hardy-Weinburg equation |
p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1 |
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In the Hardy-Weinburg Equation, what does q2 stand for? |
1- p2= this the frequency of the second homozygotes alleles |
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In the Hardy-Weinburg Equation, what does p2 stand for? |
the frequency of the first homozygotes alleles |
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In the Hardy-Weinburg Equation, what does 2pq stand for? |
plug int the p and q into equation the frequency of the first heterozygotes alleles |
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What does ocean upwelling and lake turnover do? |
they affect nutrient availability by bringing nutrients from the bottom up to the water's surface |
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What happens in ocean upwelling? how does it occur? |
wind blows and pushes surface water, as the earth turns the direction adjusts slightly to the left, and the surface water is replaced by bottom water that is full of nutrients |
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lake turnover |
when each fall or spring glacially formed lakes undergo a turnover |
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thernocline |
in winter and summer in these lakes varies from top to bottom along gradients called this |
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freshwater lakes and ponds have what five zones of water depth |
1. Litteral Zone "seashore' 2. Limnetic Zone 'lake' 3. Benthic Zone "depths' 4. Photic Zone 5. Aphotic Zone |
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Litteral Zone "seashore' |
shore waterlillies/reeds most productive
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Limnetic Zone 'lake' |
cyanobacteria/ algae found here The middle top of the lake |
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benthic "depth" zone |
the bottom of the lake |
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Photic Zone |
the part in the lake that has light reaching it |
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Aphotic Zone |
the part in the lake that the light does not reach |
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H20 movement in lakes and ponds are driven by what? |
winds and changes in temperature |
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plankton |
cyanobacteria, algae, and other microscopic organism |
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where do you usually find the plankton? |
photic zone |
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detritus |
waste that floats to the bottom of the lake |
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what do the organisms in the benthic zone eat? |
detritus or waste that floats down |
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What are the primary producers in a lake? |
plankton |
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what are wetlands? |
shallow water habitats where soil is saturated with water for at least a part of the year |
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indicator plants |
(reeds and waterlillies) plants that only grow only in saturated soil |
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How are wetlands different from lakes and ponds? |
-they have only shallow water -they have emergent plants that are growing above the surface of the water |
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what are emergent plants? |
they are the plants that grow up out of the water |
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what are the three different types of wetlands? |
bogs, marshes, and swamps |
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Bogs |
-have low or nonexistent water flow and are stagnant, acidic, and non-productive -have carniferous and picture plants |
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marshes and swamps |
-have slow but steady water flow -highly productive
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what plants can you find in marshes? |
non woody plants |
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what plants can you find in swamps? |
dominated by trees and shrubs |
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streams, creeks, and rivers all do what |
water move constantly in one direction
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where streams originate tend to be what? |
-cold, narrow, and fast -less organisms |
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where streams end they tend to be what? |
-warmer, wider, and slower -more variety of organisms |
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estuary |
-forms where river meets and ocean -where freshwater meets salt water, and they mix -diverse and productive |
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slightly saline marshes can be found near what? |
estuaries |
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salinity in estuaries varies with what? |
-in changes in river flow and proximity to the ocean -tides -storms -floods |
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Most estuaries are relatively shallow or deep? |
shallow but can vary dramatically |
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what are marines |
they are open ocean (salt water) |
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Ocean has what 6 regions? |
Intertidal, Neritic, Oceanic, Benthic, Photic, and Aphotic zone |
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what are the two most productive zones in the ocean? |
Neritic and Intertidal |
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Evolution of Evolutionary Thought began with Plato, who believed what? |
-organisms perfect -organisms unchanging -typological thinking |
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What is typological thinking? |
a concept where organisms of a species conform to a specific norm |
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Evolution of Evolutionary Thought then changed in time with Aristotle, who believed what? |
-Great chain of being -Species unchanging -complex= better |
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Jean-Bapiste Lamark (1806) did what and believe ? |
Wrote a book about -how organisms originate based off the great chain of being by spontaneous generation -they evolve by moving up the chain over time producing complex being -inheritance of acquired characters |
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What is the belief of "inheritance of acquired characters"? |
that the parent bleaches their hair their baby will be born with blonde hair the phenotypes changes |
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typological thinking was replace with what type of thinking? |
population thinking |
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1859 Darwin and Wallace discovered what? |
Evolution by natural selection based on variation among individuals in populations and species change over time and share common ancestor |
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What is some evidence that species changed over time? |
-Vastness of geological affect -extinction -transitional figures -vestigial traits |
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What evidence is there species descend from common ancestors? |
-similar species in similar locations -homologies |
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What are evidence in rock that species changed over time? |
fossils
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How do we date fossils? |
Radioactive decay |
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extinction occurs _____throughout earths history |
continuously |
