Ecological Niches Flashcards

Flashcards about Ecological Niches, Form and Function, and Ecosystems

What is the advantage of specialized modes of nutrition to living organisms?

Specializing in one category of food or method of feeding ensures that the number of competitors for a species is reduced.

How are the adaptations of a species related to its niche in an ecosystem?

Physical adaptations, and sometimes behavioural adaptations, are crucial for organisms to occupy a specific niche in an ecosystem.

What is an ecological niche?

The unique role that a species plays in a community, including its spatial habitat, feeding activities, and interactions with other species.

What is a spatial habitat?

The physical area inhabited by a particular organism.

What are abiotic factors?

Non-living components of an ecosystem, such as sand, water, sunlight, soil type, pH, and temperature.

What are biotic factors?

Living organisms within an ecosystem, including feeding relationships, the provision of shelter, and the presence of parasites.

What is tolerance in the context of ecology?

How well a species reacts to the presence or absence of something in its environment.

What are obligate anaerobes?

Organisms that cannot tolerate the presence of oxygen and are poisoned by it.

What are facultative anaerobes?

Organisms capable of carrying out both anaerobic and aerobic respiration.

What are obligate aerobes?

Organisms that require oxygen and cannot convert food nutrients into energy without it.

What is aerobic respiration?

The chemical transformation of food nutrients into energy that requires oxygen.

What is anaerobic respiration?

The chemical transformation of food into energy that does not require oxygen.

What is photosynthesis?

The process of converting carbon dioxide and water into sugar using energy from sunlight, with oxygen as a waste product.

What are autotrophs?

Organisms that can make their own food from inorganic substances using techniques such as photosynthesis.

What are heterotrophs?

Organisms that cannot make their own food and rely on eating other organisms?

What is Holozoic nutrition?

A way of getting nutrients by ingesting all or part of an organism, digesting it internally, and then absorbing and assimilating the nutrients.

What are consumers?

Organisms that obtain their food via holozoic nutrition.

What are mixotrophs?

Organisms that are both autotrophic and heterotrophic, capable of making their own food and ingesting nutrients from other organisms.

What does the term 'obligate' mean in the context of nutrition?

An organism that must use a mode of nutrition and no other.

What does the term 'facultative' mean in the context of nutrition?

An organism that can sometimes use a mode of nutrition, but is capable of using another.

What are saprotrophs?

Organisms that live on or in non-living organic matter, secreting digestive enzymes and then absorbing the products of digestion.

What are decomposers?

Fungi and bacteria that are saprotrophs, breaking down waste material.

What is chemosynthesis?

Generating cellular energy from reactions involving inorganic molecules (without the help of sunlight).

What is the family Hominidae?

The great apes, including orangutans (Pongo), gorillas (Gorilla), chimpanzees (Pan), and humans (Homo).

What are the functions of different types of teeth?

Incisors are used for cutting off bite-sized pieces of food, canines are used for ripping and tearing tougher materials, premolars are for crushing or slicing up food, and molars are for grinding food.

What are folivores?

Animals that eat mostly plant material such as leaves

What are frugivores?

Animals that eat mostly fruit

What is microwear?

Small abrasions or removal of a tooth's surface, made as organisms chew, which can reveal the type of food they were eating.

What does herbivory mean?

To feed on plants.

How do plants protect themselves from herbivores?

Plants resist herbivory using thorns and other physical structures. Plants also produce toxic secondary compounds in seeds and leaves. Some animals have metabolic adaptations for detoxifying these toxins.

How are herbivores adapted to eating plant material?

Plants are not always easy to eat. Their leaves tend to be protected by thick layers of cells with semi-rigid cell walls, and not many organisms possess the enzymes necessary to break down cellulose, the chains of carbohydrates that make up plant fibre.

What adaptations do predators use to find, catch, and kill prey, and what adaptations do prey animals have for resisting predation?

Chemical, physical, and behavioural adaptations.

What are pheromones?

Organic molecules used to send messages through the air, and some of them are intended to attract mates.

What are Ampullae of Lorenzini?

Specially adapted organs in their heads that detect changes in electromagnetic fields, allowing them to detect prey.

What are ambush predators?

They hide and wait for prey to come near and then pounce on them.

What is camouflage?

The ability of an organism to take on the appearance of its surroundings.

What is aposematism?

Using dramatically bright and unusual colors to inform potential predators that they are poisonous.

How do plants in forests reach light sources?

Plants in forests use different strategies to reach light sources, including trees that reach the canopy, lianas, epiphytes growing on branches of trees, strangler epiphytes, shade-tolerant shrubs, and herbs growing on the forest floor.

What is the canopy?

The upper layer of a forest where the crowns (tops) of trees are found.

What are Lianas?

Vines that take root on the forest floor and use trees as a scaffold, allowing them to grow into the canopy to obtain more light.

What are Epiphytes?

Take advantage of the height and strength of trees to get up into the understorey or canopy to access sunlight, but their roots are not in the soil on the forest floor.

What is the fundamental niche of a species?

The potential niche that a species could inhabit, given the adaptations of the species and its tolerance limits.

What is the realized niche of a species?

The actual niche that a species inhabits.

What does the principle of competitive exclusion state?

No two species in a community can occupy the same niche. If they do coexist for a certain period of time, the numbers of both populations will tend to decrease. In the long run, it is often the case that one species will replace the other.