* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Unit 5
Occupancy–abundance relationship wikipedia , lookup
Maximum sustainable yield wikipedia , lookup
Agroecology wikipedia , lookup
Latitudinal gradients in species diversity wikipedia , lookup
Ecological fitting wikipedia , lookup
Conservation agriculture wikipedia , lookup
Storage effect wikipedia , lookup
Cultural ecology wikipedia , lookup
Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project wikipedia , lookup
Molecular ecology wikipedia , lookup
Photosynthesis wikipedia , lookup
Restoration ecology wikipedia , lookup
Ecological succession wikipedia , lookup
History of wildlife tracking technology wikipedia , lookup
Biogeography wikipedia , lookup
Soundscape ecology wikipedia , lookup
Microbial metabolism wikipedia , lookup
Renewable resource wikipedia , lookup
Lake ecosystem wikipedia , lookup
Human impact on the nitrogen cycle wikipedia , lookup
CHAPTER 50 AN INTRODUCTION TO ECOLOGY AND THE BIOSPHERE 1. Explain why the field of ecology is a multidisciplinary science. a. Ecology is simply not just the study of how organisms interact with their environment; in of itself the study of ecology includes areas of Biology including genetics, evolution, physiology and meteorology. 2. Describe the relationship between ecology and evolution. a. An important cause of evolution is an organism’s response to biotic and a biotic change in their environment. Distribution and abundance of organisms are products of both long-term evolutionary changes and ongoing interactions with the environment. 3. Explain the importance of temperature, water, light, soil, and wind to living organisms. a. Temperature is an important factor in the distribution of organisms because of its affect on biological processes and the inability of most organisms to regulate body temperature precisely. The availability of, or lack of, water and sunlight are vital to life in that they are sources of energy. Wind amplifies the effect of environmental temperature on organisms by increasing heat loss due to evaporation and convection. The physical structure, pH, and minerals composition of rock and soil limit the distribution of plants and the animals that feed on them. 4. Describe how environmental changes may produce behavioral, physiological, morphological, or adaptive responses in organisms. a. Environment changes such as temperate changes can trigger a response in the form of adaptations. Behavioral adaptations are almost instantaneous and are easily reversed, while physiology adaptation may be implement and changed over time scales ranging from seconds to weeks. Morphological adaptations may develop over the lifetimes of individual organisms or be with generations. Adaptive genetic changes usually evolve over several generations. 5. Describe the characteristics of the major biomes: tropical forest, savanna, desert, chaparral, temperate grassland, temperate forest, taiga, and tundra. a. Tropical rainforest have an abundance of life due to its gracious rainfall and short dry seasons. They are found in areas near the equator. Savanna is grassland with scattered individual trees. They have 3 distinct seasons that occur in this order: Cool and dry, hot and dry, and warm and wet. Deserts are the driest of all terrestrial biomes, characterized by mild, rainy winters and long, hot, dry summers cause aridity, short growing seasons, low nutrient soil, and frequent fires result in shrubby vegetation. 6. Using a diagram, identify the various zones found in the marine environment. a. Figure 56.26 CHAPTER 52 POPULATION ECOLOGY 1. Define the scope of population ecology. a. Population ecology can be thought as individual of one species that simultaneously occupy the same general area; they rely on the same resources and are influenced by similar environment. 2. Explain how ecologists measure density of a species. a. An actual count of the population may be taken, but that is impractical, and so indirect indicators, such as the number of nests or burrows, may estimate population sizes or droppings and tracks left by the organism. Another commonly used technique is the mark-recapture method. 3. Explain how carrying capacity of the environment affects the intrinsic rate of increase of a population. a. Carrying capacity is the maximum stable population size that a particular environment can support. Crowding and resource limitation can have a profound effect on the population growth rate. If individuals cannot obtain sufficient resources to reproduce, per capita birth rate will decline. If they cannot consume enough energy to maintain themselves, per capita death rates may increase. 4. 10. Explain how density-dependent and density-independent factors may work together to control a population's growth. a. Many populations remain fairly stable in size and are presumably close to the carrying capacity that is determined by densitydependent factors. Superimposed in this general stability are shortterm fluctuations due to density independent factors. 5. 11. List the three major characteristics of a life history and explain how each affects the: 6. Number of offspring produced by an individual 7. Population's growth a. The traits that affect tan organisms schedule of reproduction and death make up its life history. Clutch size (the number of offspring per reproductive episode), frequency of reproduction, and investment in parental care are the three parts that makeup an organisms` life history. How long it takes and organism to reach maturity and how much time will be invested in parenting is determined by the organisms` fecundity and mortality. CHAPTER 53 COMMUNITY ECOLOGY 1. Explain the relationship between species richness, relative abundance, and diversity. a. Species diversity with a community: An assemblage of species living close enough for potential interaction, includes both the species richness (number of species present) and the relative abundance of each species. 2. List four properties of a community, and explain the importance of each. 3. Explain how interspecific competition may affect community structure. a. In interspecific competition the population growth of a species may be limited by the density of competing species as well as by the density of its own population. As a result mortality rates mortality rates increases, birth rates decreases, and population growth is curtailed. 4. 13. Distinguish among parasitism, mutualism, and commensalisms. a. Parasitism is a type of predation in which a parasite lives on or in a host, deriving nourishment from it but usually mutualism is a relationship. In commensalisms one partner benefits without significantly affecting the other. 5. 15. Distinguish between primary succession and secondary succession. a. Succession is a process of change that results from disturbance in a community. Primary succession occurs no soil previously existed. Secondary succession occurs begins in an area where soil remains after a disturbance. CHAPTER 54 ECOSYSTEMS 1. Explain the importance of autographic organisms with respect to energy flow and nutrient cycling in ecosystems. a. Each ecosystem has a strophic structure of feeding relationships that determines the pathways of energy flow and chemical cycles. The species in a community or ecosystem into strophic level that ultimately supports all others consists of autotrophy, or the primary producers of the ecosystem. 2. List and describe the importance of the four consumer levels found in an ecosystem. a. Primary consumers eat plant life such as algae. Secondary consumers are carnivores that eat herbivores. Higher carnivores called tertiary consumers then eat these carnivores. Decomposer then derive their energy from waste, such a feces and carcasses and organic waste. 3. Explain how gross primary productivity is allocated by the plants in an ecosystem. a. All organisms require energy for growth, maintenance and reproduction. Primary consumer use light energy to synthesize energy – rich organic molecules, which can subsequently be. 4. Explain why productivity declines at each trophic level. a. As energy flows through an ecosystem much of it is dissipated before organisms at the next level can consume it. The amount of energy available at each trophic level is determined by net primary productivity and the efficiencies with which food energy is converted to biomass in each link of the food chain. 5. Distinguish between energy pyramids and biomass pyramids. a. In an energy pyramid the trophic levels are stacked in blocks with primary producers forming the foundation of the pyramid. The size of each block is proportional to the productivity of each trophic level. In a biomass (the total dry weight of all organisms) in a trophic level. 6. Describe the carbon cycle, and explain why it is said to result from the reciprocal processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. a. In the carbon cycle, the reciprocal processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration provide a link between the atmosphere and terrestrial environment. Plants acquire carbon in the form of CO2, form the atmosphere through the stomata of their leaves, and incorporate it into the organic matter of their own biomass through the process of photosynthesis. Some of this organic material then becomes a carbon source for consumers. Respiration by al organisms returns CO2 to the atmosphere. 7. Describe the nitrogen cycle, and explain the importance of nitrogen fixation to all living organisms. a. The plants in the form of nitrate take up most of the nitrogen cycling through the food web. Most of this, in turn, comes from the nitrification of ammonium that results from the decomposition of organic material. Also, in some ecosystems, an atmospheric deposition of NH4+ and NO30- that is dissolved in rain adds to the nitrogenous materials to the soil. Via nitrogen fixation certain prokaryotes convert N2 into minerals that can be used to the synthesize nitrogenous organic compounds such as amino acids. 8. Explain how phosphorus is recycled locally in most ecosystems. a. Plants absorb and use phosphate for organic synthesis. The weathering of rocks gradually adds phosphate to soil. After producers incorporate phosphorous into biological molecules, it is transferred to consumers in organic form, and added back to the soil by the excretion of phosphate by animals and by the action of decomposers on detritus. 9. Describe how increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide could affect the Earth. a. CO2 and water vapor intercept and absorb much of the reflected and infrared light given to off by the sun, reflecting it back towards the earth. This maintains the earths` temperature. Since the Industrial Revolution large amounts of CO2 have been introduced into the atmosphere through the burning of natural gases. The increases in CO2 levels allow more heat to be retained and over time it has raised the earths temperature.