Download TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY STUDY GUIDE

TERRESTRIAL ECOLOGY STUDY GUIDE
1. What is biomass?
2. State and explain the law of conservation of matter.
3. What is a trophic level?
4. What happens to biological production and biomass as energy flows up
a food chain?
5. What does it mean to “eat lower in the food chain?”
6. What is ecological succession?
7. List examples of ecological disturbances both natural and human
caused.
8. What is primary succession? How does it differ from secondary
succession?
9. What are pioneer or early successional species?
10.
What is a climax community?
11.
What are macronutrients? Micronutrients? (include examples)
12.
How can nutrients be limiting factors?
13.
How does the carbon cycle function?
14.
How does the nitrogen cycle function?
15.
How does the phosphorous cycle function?
16.
What is the difference between an ecological niche and a habitat?
17.
What is exponential growth?
18.
What is doubling time?
19.
What is sustainability?
20.
What is the carrying capacity of the environment?
21.
What is the Gaia Hypothesis?
22.
What is an indicator species? Give an example.
23.
What is an ecosystem?
24.
Why is it difficulty to tell the boundaries of an ecosystem
25.
What is an ecological community?
26.
Define:
autotroph
heterotroph
herbivore
carnivore
omnivore
scavenger
decomposer
27.
What is a primary consumer? What is a secondary consumer?
Examples
28.
What is a food chain?
29.
What is a food web and how is it different from a food chain?
30.
What is a keystone species?