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AP BIO Study Guide: Ecology
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What is ecology and what ecologists study.
Know the levels of biological organization in ecology.
What is species transplant?
What is an introduced species?
Know important biotic factors that can affect biological communities.
Know what factors affect the amount of precipitation in an area.
Know why deserts typically occur in a band at 30 degrees north and south latitude
How is the mixing of water in temperate lakes during the spring and fall turnovers made
possible?
What is the cause of Earth’s seasons?
What is the most important factor affecting the distribution of biomes?
Understand the definition of convergent evolution.
Know which of the terrestrial biomes is adapted to frequent fires.
Know the characteristics of tropical dry forests.
Know the difference between immigration and emigration.
Be able to identify the most common kind of dispersion in nature.
Be able to identify the type of dispersion in humans in the US.
Know what life tables are useful in determining.
Know what information is necessary in order to construct a reproductive table.
What is carrying capacity?
In a logistic population, what can be expected as N approaches K for a certain population?
Know the terms: cohort, dispersion, Allee effect, iteroparous, semelparous
Be able to identify the characteristics for a r-selected species.
Be able to interpret an age structure diagram (when population is increasing/decreasing, etc.)
Know which factors are used to calculate an ecological footprint.
Define the competitive exclusion principle and an ecological niche.
When does resource partitioning result?
Be able to identify an example of cryptic coloration, mullerian and batesian mimicry.
Understand the symbiotic relationships: parasitism, commensalism, mutalism
What does species richness in a community refer to? And when does it increase?
Define what a dominant species in a community is.
Understand what a keystone species how it can change an ecosystem.
Know the difference between a primary and secondary succession and examples.
Be able to describe why there are more species in tropical areas than in places farther from
the equator.
Understand F.E. Clements’ integrated hypothesis.
Understand the fundamental difference between matter and energy.
Understand why energy cannot cycle through an ecosystem.
Be able to identify the main decomposers and the main producers in an ecosystem.
Know which type of ecosystem has the highest net primary productivity per square meter.
Know what factors often limit aquatic primary productivity.
Know which organism fixes nitrogen in aquatic ecosystems.
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The total biomass in a terrestrial ecosystem will be greatest for which trophic level?
Understand the green world hypothesis.
Know how phosphorus normally enters the atmosphere.
Understand the definition of biogeochemical cycling.
Know what the current rates of extinction indicate and why extinctions are an area of
concern.
Understand the difference between an endangered species and a threatened one.
Understand the definition of the greenhouse effect.
Understand why an introduced species can have negative effects on biological communities.
Modern conservation science increasingly aims to what?
How are biodiversity hot spots recognized?
What does the term “biotic boundary” refer to?
Be able to identify the agenda for the Sustainable Biosphere Initiative.
How do plants get nitrogen
What is forest fragmentation
EO Wilson and biophilia
Endemic species
Survivorship curves
Why do agricultural lands need nutrition suplliements
What is a microclimate