Unit 6

  • Biomes

    • Land Biomes

      • Desert

        • Dry like Tundra

        • Summer days can be over 40 C, but it gets super cold at night

      • Tundra

        • Extremely dry, <25 cm yearly

        • Colder than desert -12 - -6 C, summer as high as 10 C, mountains of colorado

      • Taiga

        • Precipitation : 100-130 cm/year (snow)

        • Temperature: Average of 0 C, summer up to 15 C, 6 month winters and short summers.

        • Coniferous trees

      • Deciduous Forest

        • Precipitation: 75-100 cm yearly

        • Temperature: -20 C up to 38 C Avg. 11 C

        • Similar to Taiga but warmer, broad leaf plants

      • Rainforest

        • Lots of precipitation 250-400 cm yearly

        • Hot and Humid

        • Lots of species

      • Grassland

        • Precipitation avg 50cm per year

        • Temperature: avg 10 C w/ hot summers

    • Water Biomes

      • Freshwater

      • Marine

    • Abiotic Factors:

      • Non living factors that affect ecosystems.

        • Temperature

        • Weather patterns

        • Water

        • Salinity

        • Amount of Sunlight

        • Rocks and Soil type

    • Biotic Factors

      • All the living organisms that are a part of the ecosystem

        • Plants

        • Animals

        • Fungi

        • Protists

        • Bacteria

  • Community: The interactions between 2 different species

    • Symbiotic Relationships

      • Parasitism: the parasite benefits and the host is harmed

      • Mutualism: both species benefit from one another

      • Commensalism: one species is benefited and the other species is not harmed or benefited

    • Competition

      • Competition between two organisms, they are similar in that they live in the same area and compete for the same resources.

      • Intraspecific competition

        • Competition within a species

      • Interspecific

        • Competition between different species

      • Predator / Prey

        • Predator trends follow and behind prey trends

          • Cyclic/ / Balanced

        • K of a predator is always lower than a K of the prey, K is the carrying capacity.

  • Population

    • Exponential Growth

      • Population growth is slow at first and then the population increase dramatically with time.

        • Not sustainable

        • Dramatic decrease to local extinction

    • Logistic growth

      • Eventually the population will level out at its carrying capacity.

      • Carrying capacity: maximum number of organisms in a population that the environment can support sustainably.

    • 4 Density Dependent Factors

      • Competition: Fighting over food, space and mates

      • Predation: more food for other organisms

      • Crowding and stress: causes more competition and spread of disease

      • Disease spreads rapidly in dense populations

    • Density Independent Facotrs

      • Naturally occurring events that reduce a population regardless of population number: geerally a natural disaster.

Part 1: The basics:

1. What is the study of ecology?

2. What is an abiotic factor? Give a few examples

3. What is a biotic factor? Give a few examples

4. How are herbivores, carnivores and omnivores different?

5. What is an Autotroph? What else do we call autotrophs?

6. What is a Heterotroph? What else do we call heterotrophs?

7. What is the difference between a primary, secondary and tertiary consumer?

8. Create a simple food web and identify the trophic level of each organism on your food web.

9. What is the 10% rule?

10. What is an energy pyramid? How can we tell how much energy is transferred between

trophic levels?

11. How does the 10% rule apply to how energy (calories) moves through a food web?

12. How is energy conserved within a system?

13. What types of events disrupt the flow of energy in an ecosystem?

14. What are decomposers and why are they important in an ecosystem?

15. Why is percent of vegetation cover important in an ecosystem?

16. What activities (human caused and natural) increase carbon levels in the atmosphere?

17. What is the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the carbon cycle?

18. What is the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration with respect to energy transfer

through an ecosystem?

19. How does Nitrogen levels in water affect plants and animals?

20. What is the water cycle and how are humans impacting the water cycle?

21. Describe primary and secondary succession.

22. What are pioneer species?

23. What is a climax community?

24. Give examples of climax communities.

25. What are the components of a climograph? How do they describe biomes?

26. How does removing an apex predator such as a wolf cause a trophic cascade to occur? What

does that mean for the community?

27. What are the 3 symbiotic relationships and give examples of each.

28. What is the difference between exponential growth and logistic growth?

29. What is carrying capacity?

  1. List 4 density dependent factors.