Bio chapter 3

Ecologists

Ecologists

Scientists who study the interactions of organisms with one another and its environment

Ecologists studying an individual organism

The study of how the physical appearance of an organism can change with the changes of abiotic conditions

Ecologist studying of populations

The study of groups of the same species living in a specific area at a specific time

Ecologists studying communities

The study of individuals in interacting populations in a given area, affected by competition, predator-prey relationships. This is talking about more then one species

Ecologists studying ecosystems

Studying a community of populations and the abiotic factors that surround them whether big or small

Ecologists studying the biosphere

Studying all the ecosystems in the world and how they interact

Niche

The role or job that organisms have in an ecosystem or community

What is the distribution of species related to

The ways the biotic and abiotic components of an environment affect individual organisms and their ability to survive

Aristotle

Divided things into two categories called kingdoms where animals were divided based on their size and how they moved on land, air, and water and plants were divided into 3 groups based on the difference of their stems

Carolus linnaeus

Established our current naming systems for organisms

Ernst Haeckel

Proposed a classification system that included micro organisms

Taxonomy

The practice of classification and sorting of living things staring with the broadest term the domain and going to the most specific term species. Domain, kingdom, phylium, class, order, family, genus, species

Binomial nomenclature or the Latin binomial name

Universal naming system more specific then common naming. genus name goes first with a capital first letter with the species name going second lower case, both in italics

biological species concept

Organisms are apart of the same species if they can produce offspring that can breed. This doesn’t work with microorganisms because theyre asexual

What do scientists use instead of BSC

They look at the organisms evolutionary relationships to other organisms and they can look at the genetics

Introgressioon

When the offspring goes on to mate with their parental species providing a means for genes to flow between two species

The 3 domains

Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, and Eukarya

Archaebacteria

Unicellular, prokaryotic, asexual, has a cell wall, both auto and heterotropic, and lives in extreme conditions

Eubacteria

Unicellular, prokaryotic, has a cell wall, both auto and heterotrophic, asexual, lives everywhere BUT extreme conditions

Eukarya

Eukaryotic, unicellular to multicellular, sexual, has kingdoms within

the 6 kingdoms

Archaea, eubacteria, Protista, fungi, plantae, Animalia

Dicotomous key

Using visible characteristics of organisms to plot and simplify the identification of an organism

What is the cause for the pattern of distribution of life

Abiotic factors like climate, humidity, temp, precipitation and

What leads to biomes

The difference in precipitation and temp

Topography

Altitude, Ladditude, and temperature

What can influence the amount of organism that can live in an ecosystem

The topography, the soil, and precipitation

Ecozone

The division of the earths land surfaces based on distributional patterns of terrestrial life

Habitat

A place or area within a biome or ecosystem that has a particular set of biotic or abiotic factors

Range

The geographical area where the organism is found

Biodiversity

The variety of niches and habitats within an ecosystem allowing it to support different variations of organisms

Limiting factors

Any biotic or abiotic element that might control the number of individuals in a population

Abiotic limiting factors

Soil type, humidity, temperature, and space

Biotic limiting factors

Competition, predation and parasites (organisms living in other organisms)

Intraspecific

Same species, similar adaptations, occurs for all requirements of a specie, direct severe effects on the population size ex. Food, mates, competing for limited resources

Interspecific

Different species, different adaptations, occur for only specific requirements such as prey, effects are very minor. They’re competing for limited resources

In a predator-prey relationship, how is it out of phase

The two populations become intertwined and the predator population lags behind the prey making it out of phase

How can ecologists estimate the population in an ecosystem

With sampling (transects or quadrants) which are done randomly to measure density

How can you calculate density

Density = # of species / size of quadrant

Clumped patterns

Individuals of a species are clumped in an area due to possible barriers (mountains, roads), food/water sources, or the individuals are in a herd

Uniform patterns

The species is distributed evenly brought out an area, mainly seen with plants planted in a garden

Random patterns

Not clumped but also not uniform, could mean there’s ample resources for individuals

When is random sampling used

When you have a large area which is fairly uniform patterns and when you’re on a time crunch and can count organisms individually.