Biology 413 Lecture Exam #1 Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards generated from Biology 413 Lecture Exam #1 material covering fundamental ecological terms, physiological adaptations, aquatic zones, and environmental processes.

Heritibility

A measure of how much of the variability in a trait is due to genetic variability, as opposed to environmental variability.

Ecology

The study of how organisms interact with their environments.

Biome

A large portion of the Earth's surface that has a distinctive climate and is dominated by a particular type of vegetation.

Rain shadow effect

Refers to the fact that, often, different amounts of precipitation occur on the windward and leeward sides of mountains.

Thermoregulation

An organism's ability to regulate its body temperature.

Aspect

The direction that a slope faces.

Adaptation

Evolution in response to natural selection.

Phenotypic plasticity

Refers to the fact that organisms with identical genotypes can have different phenotypes, based upon environmental conditions.

Environment

Anything that can affect an organism in any way.

Primary producers

Organisms that sit at the bottom of every terrestrial ecosystem, which every other organism in that ecosystem depends upon for its food, directly or indirectly.

Coriolis effect

The effect by which circulating air or water is deflected to the East in the Northern Hemisphere and to the West in the Southern Hemisphere.

Light compensation point

The point in a body of water where the amount of oxygen added to the water by photosynthesis is equal to the amount removed by respiration.

Upwelling

Occurs where deep, cold oceanic water rises to the surface, typically due to prevailing winds blowing surface water away from shore, or a deep current striking a continental shelf and being deflected upward.

Autochthonous resources

Resources produced within an ecosystem, rather than coming in from outside the ecosystem.

Ecotone

A transitional zone between two different ecosystems that will likely contain organisms from both ecosystems.

Riparian zone

The area of land along the edges of a stream or river, where the soil is typically water-saturated and dominated by water-tolerant vegetation.

Torpor

A state an animal can enter when environmental conditions are poor, during which the animal is inactive, and its metabolic rate and body temperature drop dramatically.

Thermal neutral zone

The temperature range over which an animal can maintain its normal body temperature without having to alter its metabolic rate.

Adiabatic cooling

Cooling that occurs as a mass of air rises and expands.

Gyres

Five major oceanic large rotating currents that distribute heat from the equator toward the poles.

Watershed

The area of land over which any precipitation that falls ultimately ends up in a specific stream, river, or lake.

Uniformitarianism

Lyell's theory that large-scale changes in the Earth's features can best be described by the accumulation of gradual change due to ordinary processes like erosion occurring over very long spans of time.

Abiotic components

Components of an organism's environment that are not living.

Benthic habitats

Habitats found on the bottom of any body of water.

In situ experiment

An experiment conducted in the field, in an organism's natural environment.

Atmospheric cells

Three large cells in each hemisphere that distribute heat from the equator to the poles and strongly influence the Earth's climate.

Neritic zone

The relatively shallow oceanic water that lies above the continental shelf.

Permafrost

A layer just beneath the soil surface where the soil is permanently frozen.

Population

A group of organisms of the same species that live together in a specific area, and that interbreed more or less freely and so evolve as a unit.

Lotic ecosystem

An aquatic ecosystem such as a stream or river that is characterized by constantly-flowing water.

Specific heat

A property of water indicating it can absorb a great deal of heat energy without its temperature changing very much.

Fitness

A measure of how well an organism can survive and reproduce in a particular environment, particularly in comparison to other members of its population.

Allochthonous resources

Resources that come into an ecosystem from the outside, rather than being produced within the ecosystem.

Acclimation

The ability of an individual organism to adjust its physiology to deal with changing environmental conditions, typically by alteration of gene expression.

Lentic ecosystem

An aquatic ecosystem such as a lake or pond that is characterized by water that is more or less still.