ENVS 200 Midterm

Damselfish farming

• Agressively defend territories from herbivores & grazers.

• Productivity hotspots: support high primary productivity, ensuring a steady food supply.

• Habitat creation: shaped reef ecosystem by influencing species distribution and abudance.

Ecology

The scientific study of the distribution and abudance of organism, interactions that determine that distribution and abudance and the relations between organisms + transformation of energy.

Damselfish farming

• Agressively defend territories from herbivores & grazers.

• Productivity hotspots: support high primary productivity, ensuring a steady food supply.

• Habitat creation: shaped reef ecosystem by influencing species distribution and abudance.

Ecology

The scientific study of the distribution and abudance of organism, interactions that determine that distribution and abudance and the relations between organisms + transformation of energy.

The law of interdependence

Everything is connected to everything else.

The law of diversity

The strength of an ecosystem is dependent upon diversity of species within it.

Anthropocene

The proposed current geological epoch, in which humans are the primary cause of planetary change.

Evolution

Process that results in change in the genetic content of a population over time.

Artificial selection

The intentional breeding of organisms by humans to enhance desirable traits.

Sexual selection

A type of natural selection where traits are favoured because they increase an organism’s mating success.

Natural selection

• Individuals are not identical.

• Some variation is heritable.

• Some do better than others.

• Peppered moths

Genetics

• A gene is the basic unit of hereditary information.

• Variations in genes contribute to variations in features, forms and behaviours.

• Fitness: good genes produce viable offspring.

• Gene flow: the movement of genes between populations.

Experimentation

Tests specific hypotheses by manipulating variables in controlled settings.

Microevolution

Adaptations

Macroevolution

• Speciation: the process by which new species arise from existing species.

• Species: a group of organisms that if they could breed to make viable and fertile offspring.

Allopatric speciation

A population is divided geologically.

Sympatric speciation

Without barriers. e.g. Apple maggot fly (one perfers apples & other hawthorn).

Parallel evolution

Parallel lineages may begin with the same ancestral morphology and may evolve in the same direction towards a new, but similar adaptive phenotype.

Isolating mechanisms

• Pre-mating isolating mechanisms (pre-zygotic): temporal, ecological and mechanical isolation.  

• Post-mating isolating mechanisms (post- zygotic): zygotic mortality, hybrid inviability, sterility and hybrid breakdown. (prevent hybrid from breeding).

Convergent evolution

Is the process by which lineages with different ancestral morphologist can independently evolve in different trajectories towards the same adaptive phenotype.

Plants

• C4 plants: are more efficient in hot, dry, and sunny conditions. e.g. corn.

• C3 plants: most common e.g. wheat.

• CAM plants: active at night. e.g. cacti & pineapple.

Being eaten

• Aposematic colouration: a colourful warning to signal unprofitability to predators. 

• Batesian mimicry: harmless/harmful. 

• Mullerian mimicry: harmful/harmful. 

Assisted migration

• Relocating oyamels firs to higher altitudes to survive rising temperatures.

• Why it matters: critical for monarch overwintering habitats. Current forests can’t adapt fast enough to climate change.

• Challenges: survival is uncertain.

• Sucesses: boosted seedling surival (10% to 90%).

Biome

• Is a general class of ecosystems: classfied by plants & animals.

• Temp, soil and the amount of light and water help determine what life exists in a biome.

Populations

• A population is a group of individuals of the one specie.

• A group has some boundary/criteria.

Individual

• Unitary: predictable and determined.

• Modular: repeated production & indeterminate.

• Genet: an individual that develops from a zygote and is a product of sexual reproduction.

• Module: an individual that develops from a genet or another module and is a product of asexual reproduction.

Pando

• Single clone of trembling aspen.

• Heaviest organism.

Mark recapture

• These are estimates of population size.

• Requires random mixing of individuals in a population.

Reproductive strategies

• Semelparous: death after first reproduction.

• Iteroparous: reproduce more than once.

The grandmother hypothesis

• Why do some animals go through menopause while others don’t.

• The hypothesis suggests it’s to preserve genetics- higher risks.

Life tables

• Cohort life table: follow a cohort through time.

• Static life table: getting an idea of what’s there now.

Immigration

Coming into a population.

Emigration

Leaving a population.

Migration

Mass directional movement.

Metapopulation

• Isolated populations that are connected by immigration/emigration.

• Spatially structured population of populations.

• Called a subpopulation.

Source

Subpopulations in a high quality habitats.

Sink

Subpopulations in lower quality habitats.

Colonization

How often a new population establishes itself in a new habitat.

Disturbance

A temporary change in environmental conditions that cause a pronounced change in an ecosystem. Types: fire, insect outbreaks and windstorms.

Ecological succession

• Primary sequence of ecosystem development without influence from prior community. e.g. bare group.

• Secondary sequence: sequence of ecosystem development with influence from prior community.

• Climax: the final stage of succession that is thought to be self replacing & stable.

Founder control

A species is the first to get a habitat and they don’t leave.

Domiance control

Overtime, other species are more competitive.

Usual order

Order of succession. (Herbs annuals, herb perennials shrubs, earily successional trees, late successional trees.

Species richness

Number of unique species.

Shannon index

Takes into account both the number of species present in a community and their relative abundance.

Species eveness

The amount of each species in a community and how evenly the species are distribution.

Alpha & gamma

• Diversity are grouped as inventory diversity.

• Sharing the same characteristics with a different scale.

• Alpha: counting individual unique species.

• Beta: comparing two.

Beta

• Diversity is defined as the difference in species composition between communities and closely related to evoluntary bio.

• gamma/alpha.

Predictors of species richness

• Productivity: energy flow in ecosystems.

• Predation intensity: increase specie richness.

• Higher temp: more time to grow & fast metabolism.

• Spatial heterogeneity: increases microhabitats.

• Intermediate disturbance hypothesis: moderate distributations allows for more species.

Herbarium

Library of mounted plant species. Understanding veg & CC.

Dendrochronology

Tree ring analysis.

Deciduous

Seeds produced by flower, drop leaves during fall.

Coniferous

Seeds produced in cones, needles retained all year.