biology final
Terms
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- mutualism
- a symbiosis that benefits both partners
- Batesian mimicry
- a palatable or harmless species mimic an unpalatable or harmful model
- ecoystem ecology
- questions concern energy flow and the cycling of chemicals among the various biotic and abiotic factors
- in the interspecfic interaction called predation
- the consumer in the predator, and the food species is the prey
- physiological responses
- when a cat's fur fluffs up, or when our muscles contract and we get goosebumps, the response occurs in just seconds
- most biomes are named for
- major physical or climatical features and for their predominant vegetation, microorganisms, fungi, and animals adapted to that particular environment
- logistic growth v. exponential growth
- logistic growth reaches carrying capacity (levels out)
- warning coloration
- animals with chemical defenses are often brightly colored, this cautions the predators
- population density
- the number of individuals of a species per unit area or volume
- bodies of water flowing in one direction
- rivers and streams. near their source the water is usually cold. downstream a river or stream generally widens and slows
- cryptic coloration
- passive defense that makes potential prey difficult to spot against its background (camoflauge)
- Rocks and Soils
- the physical structure and chemical composition of rocks and soil limit the distribution of plants and of the animals that feed on the vegetation. In streams and rivers, they composition of the underlying rock can affect water chemistry, which in turn influences the resident plants and animals. It decides which creatures can burrow .
- chemical cycling
- the use and reuse of chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen within the ecosystem
- two factors that sustain all ecosystems
- energy flow and chemical cycling
- a uniform pattern of dispersion
- often results from interactions among the individuals of a population. As a result of social interactions ex. birds nesting on a small island
- plant defenses against herbivores
- chemical toxins--> strychnine, morphine, nicotine, tannins, spines, thorns,
- desert
- family cactaceae, roadrunners, cactus wren,chaparral
- chemical elements can be
- recycled between an ecosystems living communinity and the aboitic environment
- some chemical elements require...
- "processing" by certain microorganisms before they are available to plants as inorganic nutrients
- mark-recapture method
- the researcher places traps within the boundaries of the population under study. The researcher then marks the captured animals with tags, collars, bands, or spts of dye. The marked animals are released. After a period of time, traps are set again.This second capture will yield both marked and unmarked individuals.
- shot terms is often referred to as
- ecological time
- primary consumers
- (herbivores)include insects, snails, certain vertebrates, in aquatic they are zooplankton
- food chain
- the food transfer from trophic level to trophic level
- Chalres Darwin was an
- ecologist
- there are regional patterns in the distribution of terrestrial and aquatic life--these patterns mainly reflect....
- regional differences in climate and other abiotic factors
- a keystone predator
- a species that reduces the density of the strongest competitors in a community
- hydrothermal vent communities
- seafloor includes this, which are powered by chemical energy from earth's interior rather than by sunlight
- ecosystem
- includes all abiotic factors in addition to the community of species in a certin area.
- in lakes and large ponds, the communities of plants, algae, and animals are distributed according to..
- the depth of the water and its distance from shore
- life originated in the sea and evolved there about
- 3 billion years before plants and animals colonized land
- the primary productivity of the entire biosphere is about
- 170 billion tons of organic material a year
- organismal ecology
- concerned with the evolutionary adaptations that enable individual organisms to meet the challanges posed by their abiotic environments
- Etraordinary insights can be gained from
- this discriptive approach of watching nature and recording its structure and processes
- quaternary consumers
- hawks in terrestrial ecosystems and killer whales, highest level.
- benthic zone
- at the bottom of all aquatic biomes, made up of sand and organic and inorganic sediments. occupied by communities of organisms, diversity of bacteria called benthos
- bad about DDT
- threatening the surivival of predatory birds, showed up in milk
- aphotic zone
- if a lake or pond is deep enough or murky enough, its has this...where light levels are too low to support photosynthesis
- anatomical changes
- change in body shape--can be irreversible or reversible (acclimation)
- temperate zones
- latitudes between the tropics and the arctic circle in the north and the antarctic circle in the south are called this.... generally they have milder temperatures
- niche
- the sum total of a species' use of the biotic and abiotic resources in its environment is called the species...its ecological role
- stability
- refers to the community's ability to resist change and return to its orginal species composition after being disturbed
- temperate grassland
- most are "amber waves of grain". they are the breadbasket of the world and where the deer and the antelope play. large grazing animals live in herds, smalls animals have no cover, but they run fast. low annual rainfall clost to deserts.
- in contrast to plants, most animals can respond to an unfavorable change in the environment by...
- moving to a new location
- tropical rain forests
- lianas, epipytes
- community
- consists of all the organisms that inhabit a particular area; it is an assemblage of populations of different species
- carrying capacity
- the number of individuals in a population that the environment can just maintain with no net increase or decrease
- the earth in split into how many components
- 2- the abiotic and the biotic
- community ecology
- focus on how interactions between species, such as predation, copetition, and symbiosis, affect community structure and organization.
- producers
- bottem of the food chain, supports all others, the autototrophic organisms
- natural history as a .... remains fundemental to ecology
- discovery science
- sunlight
- solar energy powers all ecosystems. In aquatic environments, the availability of it has a significant effect on the growth and distribution of algae. In terrestrial environments, light is often not the most important factor limiting plant growth. However, shading by trees creates intense competition for light at ground level
- detritus
- dead material left by all trophic levles. includes animal wastes, plant litter and dead organisms
- phytoplankton
- in aquatic ecosystems, photosynthetic protists and bacteria are the producers
- energy cannot be
- recylced within an ecosystem, but must flow continuously through the ecosystem, entering as light and exiting as heat
- acclimation
- physiological response that is longer term, though still is reversible
- the tropics
- the region from the tropic of cancer to the tropic of capricorn. this is where rainforests are concentrated here
- interspecific interactions
- interactions between species, three main- competition, predation, and symbiosis
- primary productivity
- the rate at which plants and other producers build biomass, or organic matter is call the ecosystem's this
- saltmarsh grasses and algae are the major...
- producers in estuaries
- Rachel Carson
- one of the first people to realize the global dangers of pesticide abuse (DDT). Wrote Silent Spring.
- trophic structure
- the feeding relationships among the various species making up the community
- predator adaptations
- acute senses that enable them to locate prey. claws, teeth, fangs, stingers, chemical sensors
- herbivores
- eat plants, algae, or autotrophic bacteria, they are primary consumers
- dispersion pattern
- the way individuals are spaced within the populations geographic range.
- population-limiting factors
- environmental factors that restrict population growth
- abiotic resevior
- each circuit, where for carbon, nitrogen, or some other chemical material required for life has this through which chemical cycles. Carbon's main abiotic resevior is the atmosposphere
- three types of adaptations
- physiological, anatomical, and bahavioral
- tertiary consumers
- higher level consumers include snakes that eat mice, and secondary consumers
- ecosystem
- consists of all the organisms in a given area plus the physical environment, including soil, water, and air. In other words, its a biological community plus the abiotic factors with which the community interacts
- paratism
- one of the organisms benefits while the other is harmed. The parasite, usually the smaller of the two, obtains nutrients by living on a host organism
- the time of growing disillusionment with environmental practices of the past
- 1960's
- logistic growth model
- a description of idealized population growth that is slowed by limiting factors
- benthic zone
- sea floor, dependant on light penetration
- the biotic component
- includes the living factors, all the other organisms that are part of an individuals environment
- photic zone
- shallow water near shore and the upper stratum of water away from shore make up this...so named because light is available for photosynthesis
- omnivores
- including humans, eat producers as well as consumers on different levels
- random pattern of dispersion
- individuals in a population are spaced in a patternless, unpredictably way. Only occures in the absence of strong attractions or repulsions among individuals in a population. However, environmental conditions and social interactions make this pattern as well.
- animal defenses against predators
- hiding, fleeing, alarm calls, distraction
- oceans cover about
- 75% of lands surface
- problems with environment
- depletion of natural resources, localized famine aggravated by land misuse and expanding population, growing list of species extinguished by endagered or loss of habitat
- prevalent form of vegatation
- the types and structural features of plants largely determine the kinds of animals that live in a community
- intertidal zone
- the area where land meets sea. alternately submerges and exposed twice daily cycle of tides
- biogeochemical cycles
- because chemical cycles in an ecosystem involve biotic and abiotic components
- water
- aquatic organisms face problems with water balance if their solute concentration does not match that of their surroundings. For terrestrial organisms the threat is dying out.
- biomass
- the amount, or mass, of organic material in an ecosystem
- Diversity
- the variety of different kinds of organisms that make up the community has two components--species richness and relative abundance
- secondary consumers
- carnivores, small mammals, small birds, frogs, spiders, humans
- aqautic biomes, consisting of freshwater and marine ecosystems occupy
- the largest part of the biosphere
- resource partitioning
- the differentiation of niches that enables similar species to coexist in a community
- population ecology
- concentrates mainly on factors that affect population density and growth.
- each day the earth is bombarded with about....of solar radiation
- 10^19 kilocalories (kcal)
- competitive exlusion principle
- one species has a competitive edge in obtaining food and drove the other species to extinction in the culture by using the resources more efficiently and thus reproducing more rapidly,
- Periodic Disturbances
- fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions can devastate biological communities. After them the area is recolonized by organisms or repopulated by survivos, but it undergoes a succession of changes during the rebound
- human population growth is based on the same two general paremeters that affect other animal and plant populations-->
- birth rates and death rates
- growth rate
- the change in population size per time interval
- coniferous forset
- taiga
- mullerian mimicry
- two or more unpalatable species resemble each other
- Manzanita
- evergreen shrub that grows in wester North America, which requires the heating and chemical effect fire has to stimulate the germination of its sees.
- savanna
- grasslands with scattered trees, specially adapted trees, include the bizarre baobab. large grazing mammals live in heards. lion king country
- food web
- the feeding relationships in an ecosystem are usually woven into these
- because of its curvature...
- the earth receives an uneven distribution of solar energy. the equator recieves the greatest intensity of solar radiation. etc.
- ecology
- the study of the interactions between organisms and their environments
- population ecology
- focuses on the factors that influence a population's size, growing rate, density, and structure
- a clumped pattern of dispersion
- in which individuals are aggregatede in patches, the most common in nature. Often results from an unequel distribution of resources in the environment. Often associated with uneven food distribution, mating or other social behavior, or predator avoidance.
- biomes
- major types of ecosystems that cover large geographic regions are called this..
- ecology is in four comprehensive levels
- organismal, population, community, and ecosytem ecology
- population
- a group of individuals of the same species living in a particular geographic area
- energy flow
- the passage of energy through the components of the ecosystem
- how do we measure population density
- sampling techniques to estimate
- ecology employs that most basic of scientific processes=
- posing of the hypotheses, the use of observations and experiments to test that hypothesis.
- a portion of chemical cycling can....
- bypass the biotic components and rely completely on geological processes
- expontential growth model
- the rate of expansion of population under ideal, unregulated conditions is described by this, in which the whole population multiplies by a constant factors during constant time intervals. The rate at which a population grows depends on the number of individuals already in the population
- species diversity
- considers both diversity factors: species richness and relative abundance
- human growth
- the human population has been growing almost exponentially for centuries.
- evolutionary adaptation via natural selection results from
- the interaction of organisms with their environments
- Temperature
- an important abiotic factor because it effects matabolism
- habitats
- specific environments in which organisms live. Each habitat has a characteristic community of organisms
- species richness
- the total number of different species in the community
- DDT caused
- increases in farm productivity, enabled the US to grow surplus food and sell it overseas
- the abiotic component
- consists of nonliving chemical and physical factors--such as temperature, light, water, minerals, air
- Wind
- some organisms-bacteria, protists, and many insects that live on nutrient poor snow covered mountain peaks, depend on nutrients blown to them by wind. Also for dispersal of seeds. Also organisms water loss by evaporation
- pelagic zone
- open ocean itself, supports communities dominated by motile animals such as fish, squid, marine mammals, etc. phytoplankton oceans most photosynthetic creatures
- biosphere
- the global ecoystem--the sum of all the planets ecosystems, or all life and where it lives
- detritivores
- a level left out of food chains, the decomposers, derive their energy from detritus
- symbiotic relationship
- interaction between two or more species that live together in direct contact
- estuary
- the area where a freshwater stream or river merges with the ocean
- energy pyramid
- the cumulative loss of energy from a food chain can be represented in a diagram called this. The trophic levels are stacked in blocks, with the block representing producers forming the foundation of the pyramid. the size of each block is proportional to the biomass in each trophic level
- the biosphere is...
- isolated in space, self contained, closed, except that it is photosynthetic producers derive energy from sunlight and it loses heat to space