Bio 2 Exam 3

Dr. Hart

Define ecology

• Main definition: A branch of science that deals with interactions between living organisms and their surroundings

• Haeckel: The scientific study of the relationship between organisms and the environment

• Andrewartha/Birch: The study of the distribution and abundance of organisms

• Odum: The study of the structure and function of nature (emphasizes study. of ecosystems, including all organisms and functional processes)

Identify the major sub-disciplines of ecology

• Physiological ecology: Examines biological responses to external and internal environmental conditions like temperature, light, and exercise

• Behavioural ecology: Studies the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behaviour and the role of behaviour in survival and reproduction

• Evolutionary ecology: Examines the evolutionary responses to ecological processes and environmental changes

• Population ecology: Studies with the dynamics of populations and factors that affect species abundance and distribution

• Community ecology: Examines the interactions between species in an ecological community, and quantifies species diversity and processes that structure communities

• Ecosystem/Global ecology: Studies the flows of energy and matter within and between ecosystems

Identify the different levels of ecological organization and recognize the types of questions that are asked at each level

• Biosphere: The global zone containing all life on Earth, including land, water, and air. Typical questions include — how do global wind and ocean currents move heat and life around?, and how do worldwide changes in climate affect life everywhere on the planet?

• Ecosystem: All the living parts (biotic) and non-living parts (abiotic) interacting in an area.Typical questions include — how does energy flow through food webs?, how do nutrients like carbon and nitrogen cycle through the environment?, and how does a change in temperature or rainfall affect the living parts?

• Community: All the different populations (various species) living and interacting in one area. Typical questions include —how do predators affect prey?, how do different species compete for the same food?, how does the loss of one species change the whole group?

• Population: A group of individuals of the same species living in the same area. Typical questions include — how fast is this group growing or shrinking, what causes the number of births and deaths?, and what limits how many individuals can live here?

• Organism: A single living thing like a plant, animal, or bacteria. Questions can include — how does this animal find food?, how does it survive harsh weather?, and what are its physical and behavioral adaptations?

Describe the importance of biodiversity to ecosystem function

• Overall: It drives ecosystem productivity and enhances resilience to disturbances as well as ensuring the delivery of essential ecosystem services

• Specifically: Recycles nutrients, allows ecosystems to yield more biomass, the insurance effect, easier to recover, higher resistance, purifies water, pollination, etc.

Explain how “shifting baselines” distort our comprehension of the magnitude of biodiversity loss

• The Fading Blueprint: A book about how the shifting baseline syndrome blinds people to ecological decline

• Concept: Shifting Baseline Syndrome/Environmental Generational Amnesia

• Mechanisms: A gradual change in the accepted norms for the condition of the natural environment due to a lack of experience, memory, or knowledge of its past condition. Knowledge goes extinct because younger generations never saw the past conditions, creating a blindspot where failing to pass experience to the future.

• Result: We transform the world but we fail to remember what we have transformed. Biological change must exist AND perception must show age-related differences matching data.

Describe and explain how climate and topography shape ecological systems

Identify the major factors that influence climate across the globe

Explain why solar input varies around the globe

Describe the ways that heat is redistributed and how this influences climate in different regions

Identify the major steps in the Hadley cell

Explain how the Coriolis effect produces global wind patterns and surface currents

Describe the process of deep ocean thermohaline circulation

Identify the major steps that occur with the rain shadow effect

Describe how FL summer sea breezes are generated

Identify, compare, and contrast major terrestrial and aquatic biomes

Apply knowledge of atmospheric circulation and climate to identify geographic location of major terrestrial ecosystems (aka biomes)

Be able to identify terrestrial biomes by their climate (temperature and precipitation), growing season length, dominant vegetation, and vegetation structure

Identify the biome best represented by a Walter climate diagram

Be able to give examples of different organism adaptations to different climates and biomes

Match the organismal adaptation to the environment represented in a Walter climate diagram

Describe the key abiotic factors used to characterize and distinguish among aquatic biomes

Compare and contrast the characteristics of freshwater biomes

Define and contrast estuaries with other aquatic biomes

Compare and contrast the characteristics of ocean zones and marine biomes

Define life history

What is parity?

Describe fecundity

What is a life table?

What is parental investment? What are its pros and cons?

Describe longevity in the ecological sense for organisms

Explain how resource allocation works

What is life history? What are the aspects of it?

Describe tradeoffs for organisms

Compare and contrast how life history traits can vary with respect to life form or conditions in the environment

Be able to give examples of different organism adaptations to different climates and biomes

Explain what population demographics are and describe the ways they are measured

Identify the three different types of spatial dispersion patterns of populations

Identify costs and benefits of group living

Explain the role of behavior in partitioning space within a population

Describe the Birth-Death Model of population growth and use it to estimate the per capita growth of a sample population

Calculate the doubling time for a population with a constant per capita growth rate and contrast multiplicative and additive growth rates

Identify the factors that have allowed human population growth to increase multiplicatively (exponentially)

Explain how the age structure of a population can be used to describe population growth

Name the factors that determine intrinsic growth rate (rmax)

Define life history, describe trends in life history strategies among organisms, and identify important trade-offs in life history and resource allocatin

Distinguish between proximate and ultimate causes of behaviors

Describe the 3 types of survivorship curves and explain what they tell us about survival of different age classes in a population

Draw a graph of a population in stable equilibrium

Recognize the difference between exponential and logistic growth curves

Describe the forces that regulate populations in natural systems

Give the logistic growth equation and explain what the variables mean, how the variables are related, and how the variables change at different points along the logistic growth curve

Explain why populations demonstrate fluctuating, periodic cycles of high and low abundance

Define metapopulation and describe ways to maintain connections within a metapopulation

Define climate

Define weather

Define Hadley cell

Define polar cell

Define coriolis effect

Define biome

Define climate diagram

Define intraspecific competition

Define interspecific competition

Define resource competition

Define resource partitioning

Define top-down vs bottom-up processes

Define the evolutionary arms race

Compare and contrast the different types of species interactions

Identify which species interactions are positive, negative, or neutral

Recognize the difference between direct and indirect effects of one species on another

Describe the competition exclusion principle and explain how resource partitioning allows species to coexist

Explain the role of behavior in maintaining distinctions among species

Explain the difference between realized and fundamental niche

Describe the different types of adaptations species use to avoid predators or increase rates of predation

Give examples of direct and indirect species interactions

Give examples of how environmental changes, such as removal of a top predator, may alter species interactions (e.g. cascading effects)

Explain the difference between top-down and bottom-up controls on community structure

Define keystone species and give examples of three types

Describe how species interactions can influence fitness, population dynamics, and species distribution and can result in evolutionary change

Define species diversity

Define species richness

Define relative abundance

Define species evenness

Define species turnover

Define trophic structure

Define dominant species

Define keystone species

Define succession

Define climax community

Define primary succession

Define pioneer species

Define secondary succession

Define ecological transition

Describe the key components of community structure, including species composition, species diversity, and relative abundance

Explain how we quantify spatial and temporal variation in species composition (i.e. species turnover)

Compare and contrast species diversity among communities using two key methods (Shannon Index & Rank Abundance Curves)

Compare and contrast species diversity among different types of ecological communities and their associated biomes

Describe the generally predictable patterns of community development in primary and secondary community succession

Explain what happens in an irreversible ecological transition

Describe and apply the theory of island biogeography in developing conservation strategies that help combat the effects of habitat fragmentation.

Define net primary production