GEOG 2 Test 1

Provisioning Services

Direct, material products from ecosystems

Regulating Services

Ecosystem processes that moderate hazards and sustain natural or cultivated ecological communities

Cultural Services

Non-material benefit, contributes to culture, wellbeing, and knowledge

Supporting Services

Cycles and buildups in the Earth-life system that keep essential nutrients, substrate, air, and water available

Biomimicry

the practice of observing nature's time-tested designs, processes, and systems and emulating them to solve human challenges and create sustainable technology

Conservation Biology

the field of biology singly concerned with protecting and restoring taxonomic and functional diversity, and ecosystem services

Biomass

the mass of living matter, like vegetation or bodies

Calorie

a unit of energy; defined by the amount of energy needed to heat 1g of water by 1 degree Celsius*

Autotroph

make carbohydrates from abiotic* energy sources

Heterotroph

eat other living things and recycle the calories into their own bodies, e.g., horses and humans

Photosynthesis

the biological process by which plants, algae, and cyanobacteria convert light energy into chemical energy to fuel their metabolism

Primary Production

the biomass that comes from photoautotroph

Photoautotroph

use energy from sunlight to make sugars, a chemical pathway called photosynthesis

Chemoautotroph

use energy from non-biological (inorganic) chemical reactions, like deep-sea vent bacteria

Endotherm

warm-blooded animals need to eat a lot more because they lose so much energy from their bodies through heat

Ectotherm

cold-blooded animals that can go months between meals

Virus

have no cells of their own, only genetic material inside of a “coat” of proteins; can’t divide or replicate on their own; go inside cells of a host and hijack the host cell to replicate the virus instead of replicating itself as a cell, the cell explodes (lyses) to release the duplicated viruses

Natural Selection

reproduction rate high enough to overproduce offspring (the population won’t go extinct right away if some individuals die); variation in traits (i.e., individuals in a population differ); those traits are inherited characteristics (passed from parent to offspring); different outcomes in survival and/or reproduction because of those traits

Energy

stuff that has calories: carbohydrates, fats, proteins; light; chemical gradients; heat

Life

replicate itself; replicates must themselves be able to replicate; replicates have random imperfections (mutations and changes in traits from parent to offspring; diversity in traits across individuals)

Species Problem

there are up to 26 definitions; no decided, specific definitions

Species (Biological)

a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring

Species (Morphological)

a group of individuals that look really similar

Species (Genetic)

compare the genetic code across any animals, plants, or fungi, based on a gene extracted from mitochondria

Reproductive Isolation

Through geographic and behavioral partitioning

Ring Species

adjacent populations interbreed/hybridize, but populations at the ends of the ring look and behave very differently to each other and cannot interbreed

Cryptic Species

some individual organisms look identical, but genetic sequencing shows distinct, non-breeding species

Sexual Dismorphism

males and females (and sometimes some males vs. other males) can look VERY different

Eukaryote Species Estimate

5 million is a common middle estimate

Number of Insects Estimate vs. All Other Animals

3 in 4 animals is an insect

Taxonomic Hierarchy

domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, (sub-species)

Taxonomy

the system of organizing species into nested groups (taxa

of hierarchical levels)

Taxon

a group organisms; it can be of any rank and contain any number of species

Prokaryote

(bacteria and archaea) single-celled; lack a nucleus to contain the DNA, and any other organelles (internal structures with their own membranes around them)

Eukaryote

(plants, animals, and more) can be single-celled or multicellular: have a nucleus and other organelles, e.g., mitochondria, chloroplasts

Three Domains

bacteria (eubacteria), archaea (archaebacteria), eukarya (eukaryote)

Six Kingdoms

eubacteria, archaebacteria, animalia, plantea, fungi, protozoa

Functional Diversity

biodiversity refers to the diversity of ecosystem functions present

Taxonomic Diversity

biodiversity is the number of different species (or genera or families) and their relative abundance (how common they are in a given place)

Monoculture

have the lowest possible taxonomic and functional diversity

Functional Redundancy

the ability of two or more species to perform the same function in an ecosystem

Complementarity

more species means more functional roles means individual organisms have different ways to meet their needs without competing with one another, allowing all species to thrive

Community

the smallest ecological unit able to sustain itself

Community Ecology

the field that studies the interactions between species that live together

Population

the group individuals of a single species that live in a local area

Dominance

highest abundance (e.g., the most individuals of any animal species); most biomass (all the individuals together would weigh more than those for any other species); largest or most noticeable structures, like corals making up a reef

Keystone Species

a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance

Productivity

how efficiently an area or ecosystem generates output relative to the inputs or space it uses

Levels of a Trophic Hierarchy

primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, apex predators

Average Efficiency of Trophic Energy Transfer

only 10% of the energy at one trophic level moves up to the next trophic level through predation*

Vegetation Structure

the three-dimensional spatial arrangement and physical distribution of plant species, life forms, and biomass in an ecosystem

Disturbance

short‐term* event that significantly changes community structure, resource availability, and the physical landscape

Succession

the changes in physical and biological conditions that follow disturbances

Facilitation

when one set of species returns, they can change the area to make it livable again for another set of species

Early Succession Species

the first species to grow back are

Climax Community

the final vegetation type to grow back

Pyrogeography

the study of the past, present, and projected future distribution of wildfire and its impacts

Surface Fires

low‐intensity; destroy ground vegetation while leaving trees intact

Crown/Canopy Fires

are sufficient to cause tree canopies to ignite produce high‐intensity

Primary Succession

takes place in areas that have effectively no life at all to start from; this is usually interpreted as lack of soil

Secondary Succession

takes place when an existing ecosystem recovers from a disturbance such as fire

Human Disturbances

ex: logging, road-building, draining wetlands for fields of crops, invasive plant diseases or insect pests