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| Ecology of Communities & Ecosystems |
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Definition
| Communities interact with their larger environment and with each other: this is the realm of ecosystem or landscape ecology. |
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| Group of species that interact with each other. |
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| An interaction where individuals of one species suffer reduced fitness or reproduction as the result of an interaction with individuals of a second species. |
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| Ecological and evolutionary theory both suggest that a species less able to compete will either change its habits (adapt) or die out; and as a result, one of the two species excludes the other. |
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| The two competing species somehow divide up the resource. |
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A second class of community interactions involves one species using another
Species for food |
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| Many grazers such as cows, horses, sheep, deer, numerous insects and many others that consume plant material are also called herbivores and the activity of eating plant tissue |
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| You and I could be said to be ‘grazed’ by female mosquitoes when we get bitten, because they are taking some of our tissue (blood) to produce eggs. |
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| Where the populations of both predator and prey cycle from low to high and back again. |
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| Singled-celled microorganisms and viruses that give us diseases are also parasites |
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| As a community gets older there is a more or less predictable series of changes that occur, and this process of community change. |
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| Occurs when the process starts from an absolute blank slate; a location where there is no life at all. |
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| The process begins with some type of disturbance, but following the disturbance there is still living material, (i.e. roots, seeds, fungi etc.) remaining in the area. |
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| R-selection versus k-selection |
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Definition
| R-selected species exploit empty niches; produce many offspring, each with a low probability of surviving to adulthood. In contrast, k-selected species are strong competitors and invest heavily in fewer offspring, each of whom has a relatively high probability of surviving to adulthood. |
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| An ecosystem is all the living organisms that interact together in a place, combined with all the nonliving characteristics of that place. Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment. |
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| Populations within a community are bound together by a network of relationships, one of the most important being trophic or feeding interactions. |
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| Which is a linear representation of who eats whom? |
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| An alternative to a food chain as a model of feeding interactions. A food web provides a better approximation atrophic reality. |
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| Suggest that changes in a food web propagate or cascade down to the lower trophic levels. |
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| Which visually shows the reduction in energy among the trophic levels? |
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| Referred to as nutrient or chemical cycling |
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| Cycle that provides water to organisms through Groundwater, and oceans. |
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| Atmospheric carbon (i.e. CO2 gas), dissolved oceanic carbon (i.e. dissolved CO2 gas as in carbonated beverages), carbon in living tissue and carbon locked up in fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal). |
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| Because usable nitrogen is so hard to come by, animals and plants readily take in nitrogen whenever they can find it. We get the vast majority of our nitrogen from our food, while plants have to scrub the soil for nitrogen, sometimes assisted by mycorrhizal fungi as we have seen. |
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| As the wealth of life on earth, (all plants, animals, and microorganisms), the genes they contain and the intricate ecosystems they help build |
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| Considers the wealth of different species on the planet or at some more local geographic level. |
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| Refers to natural variation in which Variation that is passed on through the genes is the material with which evolution and natural selection work. Variation at the genetic level allows organisms to adapt to changing environments or to move into new environments. |
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| Refers to geographically defined areas with suites of interacting populations of plants, animals, and microbes. |
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| Is just the number of species counted in a local community (or in this case on an island?) |
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| Measures the number of species across multiple communities (or in this case across an island chain). |
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| The greatest threat to the planet’s biodiversity comes from our very being; from the fact that we need to consume other organisms in order to live. We humans are the ultimate predators and competitors with other organisms. |
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| Each and every place human beings go there is destruction of natural habitat, all of which is a major threat to biodiversity; and the process is exacerbated wherever the human population density is at its highest. |
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| The movement of species by humans around the planet has caused gigantic changes in the flora and fauna of natural communities. |
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| Global warming is the result of large scale pollution of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other compounds spewing from our cars, factories, and everything else that burns fossil fuels. As climate warms, precipitation patterns change, ice caps melt, sea level rises, and ocean currents change. |
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| Thus, marine communities, tropical forests, Arctic ecosystems, freshwater lakes and rivers and all the organisms that live in them are threatened by a growing list of pollutants and toxic chemicals. |
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| To completely get rid of, kill off, or destroy somebody or something considered undesirable |
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| A plant that grows on top of or is supported by another plant but does not depend on it for nutrition. Mosses, tropical orchids, and many ferns are epiphytes. |
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| The science of classifying plants, animals, and microorganisms into increasingly broader categories based on shared features. Traditionally, organisms were grouped by physical resemblances, but in recent times other criteria such as genetic matching have also been used. |
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| The sixth mass extinction |
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Definition
| The current rate of extinction is two thousand times greater than normal, it is estimated that over one third of all mammal species on the planet will be extinct in the next thirty years |
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Term
Arrange these eras in the correct order. Provide an event or a person and their accomplishments that characterize each era.
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Definition
Pre-European era
Era of Abundance
Era of Overexploitation
Era of Protection
Era of Game Management
Era of Environmental Management
Era of Conservation Biology
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| Humans invaded North America and coincided with demise of large mammals |
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| Roots of modern conservation movement i.e. scientific method, Lewis and Clark expedition |
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| Charles Darwin the origin of species further illustrated that humans were part of nature not separate from it and that humans had a great impact on the extinction of animals. Lead to having to get hunting licenses and Yellowstone national park |
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| Theodore Roosevelt tripled the size of forest reserves to 148 million acres and created the U.S. forest service to protect them. |
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| Aldo Leopold published a book called Game management and with this put out that we needed more research and that game and other animals needed to be protected. |
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| Era of Environmental Management |
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| President Richard Nixon passed legislature such as Clean water Act, Clean Air act to decrease pollution |
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| Era of Conservation Biology |
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| Al Gore The inconvenient Truth put the awareness of climate changes to humans and to most policy makers |
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| What is a biome? Be able to use this definition to distinguish between different biomes on earth. |
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| A biome is an area on Earth w/ similar climate, plants and animals, characterized by a distinct type of vegetation. There are 9 biomes” Tropical forest, Desert, Savanna(trees dispersed across grasslands), Mediterranean woodlands(west coast) Polar ice, Polar Tundra, Interior grasslands and temperate cool desert, Temperate forest on east coast less on W coast, Boreal forest not present in S. Hemisphere. |
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| Distinguish between weather and climate. |
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| Weather is the condition of an atmosphere at any particular time and place. Climate is the accumulation of daily and seasonal events over time. (I.e. Weather in San Diego is warm, windy Climate in Southern California has a Mediterranean climate. |
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| Hot air expands and rises. As it rises it begins to cool reaching “dew point”, and water condenses to form clouds. It continues to rise and cool and lager droplets form ensuing rain (tropical forest). However as the hot air continues to rise it travels 30o N and S. As it moves it descends closer to the earth where it becomes warmer absorbing the moisture from the environment(Desert) |
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| Air moving North or South will move to the right (west) because of the earth’s rotation to the east (In Northern Hemisphere). Air will move to the left (Southern Hemisphere). |
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| When winds blow parallel to the coastline, they push surface waters along the coast. The Coriolis Effect results in pushing surface waters westward pushing it offshore. This causes the upwelling of deeper waters (colder and full of nutrients) to replace the surface waters. |
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| Winds reach a mountain and are forced to rise up to go over it. As it rises, it expands cools and loses its abundant moisture as rainfall (very similar to the tropical pattern). Now as it to the other side of the mountain it cools and dries and descends down the backside of the mountain. Yet as it gets lower in elevation the pressure increases, it warms up and acts like a sponge and literally sucks water out of the surrounding landscape (much like what we saw with the deserts at 30º).as one side of the mountain receives large amounts of rainfall and the back side (in the shadow) receives very little precipitation |
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Term
| What are the requirements for natural selection to occur? Be able to apply these to a situation. |
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Definition
• More Organisms are born than can survive: Atlantic Cod produce about 2 million eggs but by age 2-4 only 2 survive
• Organisms vary: New England Snails ( unbanded +banded)
• This variation is inherited: Banding is inherited
• As a result of this variation there are differences in survival and reproduction: Birds eat more banded snails than unbanded snails, so survival rate of banded snails declines |
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| Distinguish between the range, habitat, and fundamental niche and realized niche of an organism. |
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Definition
| Habitat of an organism is where the organism lives. Range is a term that describes the map location where you can find a species. This can include multiple habitats if the species is found across different habitats. The niche of an organism is the activities and relationships of an organism constrained by physical and biological processes i.e. what does it eat? Who eats it? The fundamental niche considers what the species could do, or the range of possibilities its biology allows, but not necessarily what it does in reality. This is in contrast to the realized niche which is defined as what the species actually does when it is constrained by other creatures. |
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Species diversity
Genetic diversity
Ecosystem diversity
Alpha diversity
Gama Biodiversity |
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| Causes of Biodiversity decline |
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Definition
Human Population Growth
Habitat Destruction
Alien Species
Climate change
Pollution |
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Indirect Economic Value
Direct Economic Value
Intrinsic Value
Spiritual Values |
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| Reasons for Rainforest deforestation |
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Definition
Sifting cultivation
New roads
Cash Crops
Commercial Logging |
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