Bio 131 final

Is the study of interactions among organisms and between orangisms and their environment.

Interaction betewen organisms are called.

Interactions between organisms and their environment.

Oganismal Ecology as two catagories.

investigates how organisms are physiologically adapted to their environment and how the environment impacts the distribution of species

Ecology that focuses on how the behavior of an individual organism contributes to its survival and reproductive success.

This is predatation, competition, and parasitism

A Species that is moved from a native location to another.

Agressive species that crowds out native organisms.

THis is importing the organisms natural elements in order to controll the species.

studies how populations of species interact and form functional communities

is an interacting system of a community of organisms and the physical environment in which they live

deals with the flow of energy and cycling of chemical elements among organisms within a community and between organisms and the environment

sunlight penetrates the glass and raises temperatures, with the glass acting to trap the resultant heat inside

Ecologists are concerned that huiman activities are increasing the greenhouse effect and causing a gradual elevation of the earths surface temperature.

Most aquatic plants and algae are limited to a fairly narrow zone close to the surface, where light is sufficient to allow photosynthesis to occur

The prevailing weather pattern in a given region

When the effect of the Earth’s rotation is added, however, the surface flow is deflected to the right in the NorthernHemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This consequence is known as the

the warm air rising near the equator forms towers of cumulus clouds that provide rainfall, which, in turn, maintains the lush vegetation of the equatorial rain forests

are areas of high pressure and are the sites of the world’s tropical deserts, because the subsiding air is relatively dry, having released all of its moisture over the equator

In the three-cell model, the circulation between 30° and 60° latitude, called the

At the poles, the air has cooled and descends, but it has little moisture left, explaining why many high-latitude regions are actually desert-like in condition

Temperatures decrease with increasing elevation. This decrease is a result of?

Mountains blocking, mouisture hits one side and produces rain. On the other side it sheltered and drier air decends.

Study 54.25

Environment found in equatorial regions. Cover mush of northern south americ, central america, western and central america, southeast asia, and various islands.

This biome exists in equatorial regions where rainfall is more seasonal than in tropical rain forests.

The area of this biome type is small, consisting of a thin strip along the northwest coast of North America from northern California through Washington State, British Columbia, and into southeast Alaska (where it is called tongass).

are evident in the eastern U.S., eastern Asia, and western Europe. In the Southern Hemisphere, eucalyptus forests occur in Australia, and stands of southern beech are found in southern South America, New Zealand, and Australia.

known commonly by its Russian name, taiga, lies north of the temperate-zone forests and grasslands. Vast tracts of taiga exist in North America and Russia, and mountain taiga exists on mountainous areas. In the Southern Hemisphere, little land area occurs at latitudes at which one would expect extensive taiga to exist

Extensive savannas occur in Africa, South America, and northern Australia.

include the prairies of North America, the steppes of Russia, the pampas of Argentina, and the veldt of South Africa. In addition to the limiting amounts of rain, fire and grazing animals may also prevent the establishment of trees

include the Sahara of North Africa, the Kalahari and Namib of southern Africa, the Atacama of Chile, the Sonoran of northern Mexico and the southwest U.S., and the Simpson of Australia. found around latitudes of 30° north and south.

are found in dry regions at middle to high latitudes, especially in the interiors of continents and in the rainshadows of mountains

exists mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, north of temperate coniferous forest, because there is very little land area in the Southern Hemisphere at the latitude where tundra would occur

in many areas of the world, but among the largest are the Himalayas in Asia, the Rockies in North America, and the Andes in South America.

is the observable response of organisms to external or internal stimuli

study that focuses of the specific genetic and physiologial mechanism of behavior.

The genetic and physiological mechanisms of behavior

Behaviors that seem to be genetically programmed are referred to as

A behavior that once initiated will contiune until completed. Like egg-rolling behavior.

The sign stimulous to intiate FAP is termed.

learning where an organism learns to ignor a repeated stimulus

a behavior is changed or conditioned through the association. The two main types of associative learning are termed classical conditioning and operant conditioning

an involuntary response comes to be associated positively or negatively with a stimulus that did not originally elicit the response

an animal’s behavior is reinforced by a consequence, either a reward or a punishment

refers to the ability to solve problems with conscious thought and includes activities such as perception, analysis, judgment, recollection, and imagining

Another example of how innate behavior interacts with learning can occur during a limited time period of development, called

is a movement in response to a stimulus, but one that is not directed toward or away from the source of the stimulus

is a more directed type of response either toward or away from an external stimulus

long-range seasonal movement

animals have the ability to follow a compass bearing and travel in a straight line

Involves the ability not only to follow a compass bearing, but also to set or adjust it.

predicts that an animal should behave in a way that maximizes the benefits of a behavior minus it's cost.

proposes that in a given circumstance, an animal seeks to obtain the most energy possible with the least expenditure of energy.

a fixed area in which an individual or group excludes other members of its own species, and sometimes other species.

the use of specifically designed signals or displays to modify the behavior of others.

each individual in a group scans the environment for predators. The larger the group, the less time an individual forager needs to devote to vigilance and the more time it can spend feeding.

a behavior that appears to benefit others at the cost to oneself.

proposes that adaptive traits generally are selected for because they benefit the survival and reproduction of the individual rather than the group.

individuals that readily use resources for themselves or their offspring will have an advantage in a population where individuals limit their resource use

Even in a population in which all pairs laid two eggs and no mutations occurred to increase clutch size, selfish individuals that laid more could still immigrate from other areas.

For group selection to work, some groups must die out faster than others

Group selection assumes that individuals are able to assess and predict future food availability and population density within their own habitat

The probability that any two individuals will share a copy of a particular gene is a quantity, r, called

is used to designate the total number of copies of genes passed on through one’s relatives, as well as one’s own reproductive output

Selection for behavior that lowers an individual’s own fitness but enhances the reproductive success of a relative is known

extreme form of altruism is the evolution of sterile castes in social insects, in which the vast majority of females, known as workers, rarely reproduce themselves but instead help one reproductive female (the queen) to raise offspring, a phenomenon called

Females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid, the product of fertilization of an egg by a sperm. Males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid. Such a system of sex determination is called

Mating based on looks and wooing

Mating based on the strongest

Males and Females Are Paired for at Least One Reproductive Season

defined as a group of interbreeding individuals occupying the same area at the same time

the study of birth rates, death rates, age distributions, and the sizes of populations

the numbers of organisms in a given unit area or volum

the tagged animals are released, they mix freely with unmarked individuals and within a short time are randomly mixed within the population. The population is resampled, and the numbers of marked and unmarked individuals are recorded

The most common pattern of dispersion is

The rarest dispersion pattern is

Some organisms produce all of their offspring in a single reproductive event. This pattern, called

The patter of repeated reproduction in intervals throughout the life cycle is called

Semelparous organisms often produce groups of same-aged young called

is the study of how births and deaths change population sizes over time

is a mortality factor whose influence increases with the density of the population

is a mortality factor whose influence is not affected by changes in population size or density.

a mortality factor that decreases with increasing population size is considered an

The shift in birth and death rates with development is known as

refers to the relative numbers of individuals of each defined age group

Everybody has an impact on the Earth, because they consume the land’s resources, including crops, wood, fossil fuels, minerals, and so on

is an interaction that affects both species negatively (-/-), as both species compete over food or other resources.

all have a positive effect on one species and a negativeeffect on the other (+/-)

is an interaction in which both species benefit (+/+)

benefits one species and leaves the other unaffected (+/0).

when two species occur together but do not interact in any measurable way (0/0).

competition between individuals of the same species.

Competition between individuals of different species.

organisms compete indirectly through the consumption of a limited resource, with each obtaining as much as it can.

individuals interact directly with one another by physical force or intimidation

two species with exactly the same requirements cannot live together in the same place and use the same resources, that is, occupy the same niche.

describes the differentiation of niches, both in space and time, that enables similar species to coexist in a community

ocurring in the same geographic area

Occurring in different geographic area

The tendency for two species to diverge in morphology and thus resource use because of competition is called

warning coloration, which advertises an organism’s unpalatable taste.

is an aspect of camouflage, the blending of an organism with the background of its habitat

the resemblance of a species (the mimic) to another species (the model), also secures protection from predators.

two or more toxic species converge to look the same, thus reinforcing the basic distasteful design

is the mimicry of an unpalatable species (the model) by a palatable one (the mimic).

is the synchronous production of many progeny by all individuals in a population to satiate predators and thereby allow some progeny to survive

Most of these chemicals are bitter tasting or toxic, and they deter herbivores from feeding

The ability of plants to prevent herbivory via either chemical or mechanical defenses is also known as

lack chlorophyll and are totally dependent on the host plant for their water and nutrients

generally do photosynthesize, but they depend on their hosts for water and mineral nutrients.

Parasites that feed on one species or just a few closely related hosts are termed

Parasite taht feeds on many different species

parasites that multiply within their hosts.

Parasites that live on the host

parasites such as ticks and fleas, which live outside of the host’s body

parasites such as pathogenic bacteria and tapeworms, which live inside the host’s body

The ant-fungus mutualism, which permits both species to live in close association, utilizing a common resource, is known as a

defensive mutualism where neither species can live without the other

defensive mutualism where in which the interaction is beneficial but not essential to the survival and reproduction of either species

Many examples of plant-animal mutualisms involve pollination and seed dispersal. From the plant’s perspective, an ideal pollinator would be a specialist, moving quickly among individuals but retaining a high fidelity to a plant species.

One of the best examples of commensalism involves _______, in which one organism uses a second organism for transportation

hypothesis that organisms select food in terms of the nitrogen content of the tissue.

view of community, with predictable and integrated associations of species separated by sharp boundaries, is termed

described a community as an assemblage of species coexisting primarily because of similarities in their physiological requirements and tolerances

One method to analyze communities is to determine the number of species in each community

proposes that larger areas contain more species than smaller areas because they can support larger populations and a greater range of habitats

The relationship between the amount of available area and the number of species present is called the

proposes that greater production by plants results in greater overall species richness. An increase in plant productivity, the total weight of plant material produced over time, leads to an increase in the number of herbivores and hence an increase in the number of predator, parasite, and scavenger species

Ecologist Joseph Connell has argued that the highest numbers of species are maintained in communities with intermediate levels of disturbance, a concept called

seeks to identify and analyze the collective microbial genomes contained in a community of organisms, including those that are not easily cultured in the laboratory

Elton argued that outbreaks of pests are often found on cultivated land or land disturbed by humans, both of which are species-poor communities with few naturally occurring species.

describes the gradual and continuous change in species composition and community structure over time.

refers to succession on a newly exposed site that has no biological legacy in terms of plants, animals, or microbes, such as bare ground caused by a volcanic eruption or the sediment created by the retreat of glaciers

refers to succession on a site that has already supported life but has undergone a disturbance, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, or flood

colonizing species makes the environment a little different—a little shadier or a little richer in soil nitrogen—so that it becomes more suitable for other species, which then invade and outcompete the earlier residents. This process, known as

In the process known as _______ , early colonists prevent colonization by other species

In this process, any species can start the succession, but the eventual climax community is reached in a somewhat orderly fashion. The species that establish and remain do not change the environment in ways that either facilitate or inhibit subsequent colonists

the number of species on an island tends toward an equilibrium number that is determined by the balance between two factors: immigration rates and extinction rates

Each feeding level in the chain is called

harvest light or chemical energy and store that energy in carbon compounds

Most autotrophs, including plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria, use sunlight for this process. These organisms, called

These organisms receive their nutrition by eating other organisms.

Organisms that obtain their food by consuming primary producers are termed

Organisms that eat primary consumers are

Organisms that east secondary consumers are

This material, along with dead remains of animals and waste products, is called

Consumers of detritus

is defined as the percentage of energy assimilated by an organism that becomes incorporated into new biomass.

The second measure of efficiency of consumers as energy transformers is trophiclevel transfer efficiency, which is the amount of energy at one trophic level that is acquired by the trophic level above and incorporated into biomass.

in which the number of individuals decreases at each trophic level, with a large number of individuals at the base and fewer individuals at the top

An issue that faces organisms is the tendency of certain chemicals to concentrate in higher tropic levels in food chains, a process called

Global nutrient cycles, such as the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles, unite the Earth and its living organisms into one giant interconnected ecosystem called

The process by which elevated nutrient levels lead to an overgrowth of algae and the subsequent depletion of water oxygen levels is known as

is the conversion of organic nitrogen to NH3 and NH4. This process is carried out by bacteria and fungi.

is the process by which inorganic substances are incorporated into organic molecules

is the reduction of nitrate (NO3) to gaseous nitrogen (N2).

In this model, species are like the rivets on an airplane, with each species playing a small but critical role in keeping the plane (the ecosystem) airborne.

According to this hypothesis, most species are more like passengers on a plane— they take up space but do not add to the airworthiness

is often used to describe this elevated loss of species.

are those species moved by humans from a native location to another location

a species that is spreading and outcompeting native species for space and resources.

particularly the hunting of animals, has been the cause of many extinctions in the past.

through deforestation, the conversion of forested areas to nonforested land, has historically been a prime cause of the extinction of species

which is mating among genetically related relatives, is more likely to take place in nature when population size becomes very small and there are a limited number of potential mates to choose from

The prairie chicken population had entered a downward spiral toward extinction from which it could not naturally recover, a phenomenon called

In small populations, there is a greater chance that some individuals will fail to mate successfully purely by chance. For example, finding a mate may be increasingly difficult as population size decreases.

The decline in the reproduction and survival of individuals in small populations is known as the

In many populations, the effective population size, the number of individuals that contribute genes to future populations, may be smaller than the number of individuals in the population, particularly in animals with a harem mating structure in which only a few dominant males breed.

those species whose status provides information on the overall health of an ecosystem

are species whose habitat requirements are so large that protecting them would protect many other species existing in the same habita

conservation resources were often allocated to a single large or instantly recognizable species. Such species were typically chosen because they were attractive and thus more readily engendered support from the public for their conservation

more effective conservation strategy focuses on species within a community that have a role out of proportion to their abundance or biomass

is the full or partial repair or replacement of biological habitats and/or their populations that have been degraded or destroyed

the use of living organisms, usually microbes or plants, to detoxify polluted habitats such as dump sites or oil spills. Some bacteria can detoxify contaminants, while certain plants can accumulate toxins in their tissues and are then harvested, removing the poison from the system.

the propagation of animals and plants outside their natural habitat to produce stock for subsequent release into the wild, has proved valuable in reestablishing breeding populations following extinction or near extinction.