Adaptations to Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments

Vocabulary flashcards covering ecological adaptations to aquatic and terrestrial environments, gas exchange mechanisms, soil properties, phenotypic plasticity, and reproductive strategies.

Viscosity

The thickness of a fluid that causes objects to encounter resistance as they move through it.

Boundary layer

A region of unstirred air or water that surrounds the surface of an object.

Calcareous fens

Fens that are fed by carbonate-enriched groundwater with calcareous bedrock and a more basic pH.

Chara spp.

A genus of algae closely related to the ancestor of land plants that secretes $H^+$ ions to convert dissolved bicarbonate ($HCO_3^-$) into carbonic acid ($H_2CO_3$), which then rapidly dissociates into water and free $CO_2$.

Equilibrium reaction for carbon in water

The chemical reaction process in which atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves into water to form carbonic acid ($H_2CO_3$), releasing protons ($H^+$) and forming bicarbonate ($HCO_3^-$) and carbonate ($CO_3^{2-}$) ion pools.

Concurrent circulation

The movement of two fluids in the same direction on either side of a barrier through which heat or dissolved substances are exchanged.

Countercurrent circulation

The movement of two fluids in opposite directions on either side of a barrier through which heat or dissolved substances are exchanged, allowing oxygen concentration in water to continuously exceed that in blood.

Anaerobic

A condition occurring without oxygen; also known as anoxic.

Matric potential

The potential energy generated because electrical charges of water molecules are attracted to the electrical charges of soil particles, allowing soil to hold water against gravity.

Field capacity

The maximum amount of water held by soil particles against the downward pull of gravity.

Wilting point

The lowest water potential at which most plants can still take up water from the soil.

Serpentine soils

Rocky, nutrient-poor soils derived from ultramafic rocks that have low organic matter, low $Ca:Mg$ ratios, lack essential nutrients ($N$, $P$, $K$), and contain high concentrations of heavy metals ($Ni$, $Cr$, $Fe$).

Evolution

A heritable change over time, defined specifically as a change in genetic or allelic frequency within a population over time.

Fitness

The ability of an individual organism to produce viable offspring.

Temporal environmental variation

The description of how environmental conditions change over time.

Spatial environmental variation

The description of how environmental conditions change over space.

Phenotypic tradeoff

A situation in which a given phenotype experiences higher fitness in one environment, whereas other phenotypes experience higher fitness in other environments.

Phenotypic plasticity

The ability of a single genotype to produce multiple phenotypes in response to variable environmental conditions.

Acclimation

An environmentally induced change in an individual organism's physiology.

Inducible defense and offense cycle

A dynamic predator-prey interaction where chemical cues from a predator induce a prey phenotype to change, which subsequently induces phenotypic alterations in the predator.

Chemical cues in predation risk

Substances such as predator odor, alarm cues, dietary cues, and disturbance cues used by prey organisms to detect predators and assess risk during different stages of the predation sequence.

Hermaphrodite

An individual organism that produces both male and female gametes.

Inbreeding depression

A reduction in offspring fitness resulting from the inheritance of deleterious alleles from both egg and sperm during self-fertilization or mating among close relatives.

Sexual reproduction

A reproduction mechanism in which progeny inherit DNA from two parents.

Asexual reproduction

A reproduction mechanism in which progeny inherit DNA from a single parent.

Vegetative reproduction

A form of asexual reproduction in which an individual is produced from the nonsexual tissues of a parent.

Clones

Individuals that descend asexually from the same parent and bear the exact same genotype.

Parthenogenesis

A form of asexual reproduction in which an embryo is produced from a diploid egg without fertilization.

Cost of meiosis

The 50% reduction in the number of a parent's genes passed on to the next generation via sexual reproduction compared to asexual reproduction.