AP Bio Unit 8

Vocab

Levels or Organization

  • Organismal Ecology: subdisciplins of physioloical, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology concerted with how organisms structure, physiology, and behavior meet challenges

  • Population: Analyzing factors that affect population size and how/why it changes through time

  • Community (group of populations of different species in the area): examine how interactions between species, like predation and competition, affect community structure and organization

  • Ecosystem (community of organisms in area and physical factors that they interact): emphasized energy flow and chemical cycling between organisms and the environment

  • Landscape (mosaic of connected ecosystems): focus on factors controlling exchanges of energy, materials, and organisms across multiple ecosystems

  • Global (Biosphere: global ecosystem sum of all planets ecosystems and landscapes): examines how the regional change of energy and materials influences the functionin and distribution of organisms across the biosphere

Biotic Factors: living factors, all the organisms that are part of the individuals environment (plants and other animals)

Abiotic Factors: nonliving factors, all the chemical and physical factors such as temperature, light, water, and nutrients

Dispersal: the movement of individuals away from their area or origin or from centers of high population density, contributes to the global distribution of organisms

Zones

  • Photic Zone: where is there sufficient life for photosynthesis

  • Aphotic Zone: where little light penetrates

  • Benthic Zone: at the bottom of all aquatic biomes, substrate made up of sand and organic/inoganic sediments, occupies by benthos

    • Detrius: major source of food for benthic species, dead organic matter that rains down from productive surface water of the photic zone

    • Abyssal Zone: in the ocean, the part of the benthic zone that lies between 2000-6000m below the surface

Thermocline: in the ocean and most lakes, a narrow layer of abrubt temperature change separates the more uniformly warm upper layer from more uniformly cold deeper waters

Turnover: semiannual mixing of waters resulting in changing temperature profiles, brings oxegynated water from lakes surface to bottom and nutrient rich water to top

Climograph: see impact of climate on distribution of organisms, plot of the temperature and precipitation in a particular region

Ecotone: terrestial biomes grade into each other without sharp boundaries, area of integration that may be wide or narrow

Population Density: the number of individuals per unit area/volume (ex. number of bacteria per mm in test tube)

Dispersion: the patter of spacing among individuals within the boundaries of the populations

Mark-Recapture Method: capturing random sample of individual and tag/mark the individual to then release it to estimate the population size

Immigration: influx of new individuals from other areas (additions)

Emigration: the movement of individuals out of a population (removal)

Patters of Dispersion

  • Clumped: most common pattern, with individuals aggregated in patches (ex. plants + fungi clump where soil conditons and other environmental factors favor germination and growth, clumping mayflies increase chance of mating)

  • Uniform: results from direct interactions between individuals in the population (ex. plant secretes chemicals that inhibit the germination and growth nearby that could compete for resources—results from territorality)

  • Random: position of each individual is independent of other individuals occurs in the absence of strong attractions/repulsions among individuals of a population or where key physical/chemical factors are relatively homogenous across the study area (ex. dandelion seeds randomly distributed by wind)

Demography: the study of the vital statistics of populations and how they change over time, particular interest in birth rates and death rates

Cohort: a group of individuals of the same age, from birth to death, best way to constuct life tables

Semelparity (big bang reproduction): producing thousands of eggs/reproducing rapidle at once (ex. salmon rapidly producing eggs before dying)

Iteroparity (repeated reproduction): producing/reproducing repeatedly over time of their lifepsan (ex. some lizards reproduce a few large eggs during 2nd year then reproduce annualy)

Exponential Reproduction Growth (geometric): population increase under ideal conditions, all members have access to abundant food + free to reproduce at their physiological capacity, per capita rate of increase may assume rate of increase may assume max rate for species

Logistic Population Growth: incorporates changes in growth rate as population size nears carrying capacity, per capita rate of increase approaches 0 as carry capacity is reached

Carrying Capacity (K): the maximum population size that a particular environment can sustain, varies over space and time with the abundance of limiting resources

K-Selected Populations: Selection for life history taits that are sensitive to population (ex. mature trees growing in an old grown forest)

r-Selected populations: for life hisotry traits that maximize reproductive succes in low densities (ex. environemnts in which population densities are well below carring capacity/individuals facing little competition)

Density Independent: birth/death rate does not change with the population (ex. mortality of dune fescue grass mainly due to physical factors that kill similar proportions of local population reguardless of density)

Density Dependent: death rate that rises as a population density rises/ birth rate falls (ex. reproduction of dune fescue grass declines as population density decreases

Metapopulation: influences by immigration/emmigration, when local populations are linked, local populations can be thought of as occupying discrete patches of suitable habitat in a sea of unsuitable habitats

Community: a group of populations of different specias living close enough to interact ( we define boundaries to fit research questions)

Interspecific Interations: (-/-) interaction that occurs when individuals of different species compete for a resource that limites their growth and survival

Competitive Exclusion: slight reproductive advantage that eventually leads to local elimination of the inferior competitor

Ecological Niche: the sum of a species use of the biotic/abiotic resources in its environment (niche is the organisms profession/role)

Resource Partitioning: the differentiation of niches that enable similar species to coexist in a community, the indirect evidence of earlier interspecific competition resolved by the evolution of niche differentiation

Character Displacement: the tendenct for characteristics to diverge more in sympatric populations of two species than in allopatric populations of the same species

Colorations (morphological/physiological defensive adaptation)

  • Cryptic: camouflage, makes prey difficult to spot

  • Aposematic: animals with effective chemical defenses exibit bright colors as warning coloration (poison dart frog)

Mimicry

  • Batesian: a palatable (threat of being eaten)/harmless species mimics an unpalletable/harmful model (ex. larva moving, hissing like snakes to seem as a threat instead of prey)

  • Mullerian: two or more unpallatable species resemble each other, the more there are the less likely a predator will attack) (ex. cuckoo bee and yellow jacket)

Interactions

  • Herbivory: (+/-) interaction where an organism eats parts of a plant/agla (mostly vertebrates like beetles)

  • Symbiosis: when inviduals of 2+ species live in direct and intimate contact with one another

  • Parasitism: (+/-) one organism (parasite) derives its nourishment from another organism (host) who is harmed in the process

  • Mutualism: (+/+) interation that benefits both species

    • Obligative: at least one species can live without its partner

    • Faculative: both can survive alone

  • Commensalism: (+/0) interaction that benefits one of the species but neither harms/helps the other, difficult to document (ex. hitchhiking species)

Species Diversity (components)

  • Species Richness: the number of different species in the community

  • Relative Abundance: the proportion each species represents of all individual in the community

Biomass: the total mass of all individuals in a population

Species

  • Invasive Species: organisms typicall introduced by humans that take hold outside their natural range, and may not face natural predators/agents of disease

  • Keystone Species: in contrast to dominant species (abundant species), not nessesarily abundant, exert strong control in the community not by number but by their role

Succession

  • Ecological Succession: the disturbed area may be colonized by a variety of species, which are gradually replaced by other species, which are replaces by other species, etc.

  • Primary Succession: process begins in virtually lifeless area where soil had not yet been formed (ex. volcanic island)

  • Secondary Succesion: existing community has been cleared by some disturbance that leaves soil intact

Vector: where pathogens are transferred by means of an intermediate species (ex. misquito passing malaria, lice, ticks)

Ecosystem: the sum of all the organisms living within boundaries and all the abiotic factors with which they interact

Law of Conservation of Mass: matter cannot be created nor destroyed, used to determine how much of a chemical element cycles within ecosystem

Producers/Consumers

  • Primary Producers: trophic level that ultimately supports all others (autotrophs like plants/algae) photosynthetically

  • Primary Consumers: herbivores that eat plants/primary producers

  • Secondary Consumers: carnivores that eat herbivores

  • Tertiary Consumers: carnivores that eat carnivores

  • Detrivores/Decomposers: consumers that get their energy from detrius, eaten by second/tertiary consumers (ex. fungi)

    • Detrius: nonliving organic material like remains of dead organisms or fallen leaves

Gross Primary Production (GPP): total primary production, the amount of light energy that is converted to chemical energy by photosynthesis per unit time

Net Primary Production (NPP): gross primary production subtracted by the amount of energy used by primary producers for respiration

Limiting Nutrient: the element that must be added for production to increase (ex. limiting marine production= nitrogen/phosporus)

Eutrophication: cyanobacteria/algae grow rapidly in response to added nutrients, reducing the O2 concentration/clarity of water (only thing that survives is less of all but most tolerant fish)

Product Efficiency: the percentage of energy stors in assimilated food that is not used for respiration (net secondary production x 100%/assimilation of primary product)

Trophic Efficiency: the percentage of production transferred from one tropic level to the next (must always be less than the produc efficiency)

Turnover time: small standing crop compared to their production, creates inverted biomass pyramids (ex. producers never develop to their full population bc they are eaten) (standing crop g/m2 / production g/m2 x day)

Green World Hypothesis: why herbivores consume a small fractiin of plants net primary production, terrestial herbivores kept in check by a variety of factors (defenses, low nutrient concentration, abiotic factors)

Biological Magnification: accumulated toxins become more and more concentrated in successful trophic levels of a food web (ex. PCB magnification found in food web of great lakes, PCB concentration in herring gull egss 5000x the amount in phytoplankton)

Conservation Biology: integrayed ecology, physiology, molecular biology, genetics, and evolutionary biology to conserve biological diversity at all levels

Endangered Species: as a spcies that is in danger of extinction throughout all/significant portion of its range

Threatened Species: those that are considered likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future

Introduced Species: non native/exotic species, those that humans move (intentionally or accidentally) from the species’ native locations to new geographical regions (can be rapid due to human travel)

Extinction Vortex: a small population prone to positive feedback loops of inbreeding/genetic drift to draw the population down towards smaller and smaller population size until no individuals exist

Minimal Viable Population (MVP): the minimal population siz at which a species is able to sustain its numbers and survive

Effecting Population Size (Ne): needed for meaning estimate of MVP, based on breeding potential of the population

Movement Corridor: a narrow strip or series of small clumps of habitat conncting otherwise isolated patches, important for conserving biodiversity

Biodiversity Hot Spot: relativelt small area with and exceptional concentration of endemic species and a large number of endangered/threatened species

Zoned Reserve: an extensive region that includes areas relativelt undisturbed by humans surrounded by areas that have been changed by human activity/used for economic gain

Bioremediation: the use of organisms (usually prokaryotes, fungi, or plants) to detoxify polluted ecosystems

Biologial Augmentation: uses organisms to add essential materials to a degraded ecosystem, need to determine what factors (chemicals, nutrients) have been removed that limit recovery

Sustainable Development: development that meets the needs of people today without limiting the availability of future generations to meet the needs