APES MIDTERM

CHAPTER 1

The Tragedy of the Commons
1. Idea that a resource will deplete if multiple parties exclusively rely on that resource.
Sustainability
1. Living on Earth in a way that allows humans to use its resources without depriving future generations of those resources.
Ecological Footprint
1. A measure of how much an individual consumes, expressed in area of land.
Ecosystem services
1. The processes by which life-supporting resources such as clean water, timber, fisheries, and agricultural crops are produced.
Greenhouse gasses
1. Gases in Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat near the surface.

CHAPTER 2

Energy
1. The ability to do work or transfer heat.
Energy quality
1. The ease with which an energy source can be used for work.
First law of thermodynamics
1. A physical law which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but can change from one form to another.
Second law of thermodynamics
1. The physical law stating that when energy is transformed, the quantity of energy remains the same, but its ability to do work diminishes.
Positive Feedback Loop
1. A feedback loop in which change in a system is amplified.
Negative Feedback Loop
1. A feedback loop in which a system responds to a change by returning to its original state, or by decreasing the rate at which the change is occurring.

CHAPTER 3

Population
1. The individuals that belong to the same species and live in a given area at a particular time.
Community
1. All of the populations of organisms within a given area.
Ecosystem
1. A particular location on Earth with interacting biotic and abiotic components.
Biotic factors
1. Living things.
Abiotic factors
1. Nonliving things.
Range of tolerance
1. The limits to the abiotic conditions that a species can tolerate.
Photosynthesis
1. The process by which producers use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose.
Aerobic respiration
1. The process by which cells convert glucose and oxygen into energy, carbon dioxide, and water.
Anaerobic respiration
1. The process by which cells convert glucose into energy in the absence of oxygen.
Food Webs
1. A complex model of how energy and matter move between trophic levels.
Food Chains
1. The sequence of consumption from producers through tertiary consumers.
Trophic levels
1. The successive levels of organisms consuming one another. (ex. consumer, producer, decomposer)
10% rule
1. each trophic level can only give 10% of its energy to the next level.
Gross Primary Productivity
1. The total amount of solar energy that producers in an ecosystem capture via photosynthesis over a given amount of time.
Net Primary Productivity
1. The energy captured by producers in an ecosystem minus the energy producers respire.
Carbon cycle
1. Carbon enters the atmosphere as CO2; CO2 is absorbed by autotrophs such as green plants; Animals consume plants, thereby, incorporating carbon into their system; Animals and plants die, their bodies decompose and carbon is reabsorbed back into the atmosphere.
Nitrogen cycle
1. Nitrogen fixation, nitrogen assimilation, ammonification, nitrification, and denitrification.
Sulfur cycle
1. The sulfur is released by the weathering of rocks; sulfur comes in contact with air and is converted into sulphates; Sulphates are taken up by plants and microbes and are converted into organic forms; The organic form of sulfur is then consumed by the animals through their food and thus sulfur moves in the food chain; When the animals die, some of the sulfur is released by decomposition while some enter the tissues of microbes; There are several natural sources such as volcanic eruptions, evaporation of water, and breakdown of organic matter in swamps, that release sulfur directly into the atmosphere. This sulfur falls on earth with rainfall.
Water cycle
1. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation.
Phosphorus cycle
1. Weathering; Absorption by Plants; Absorption by Animals; Return to the Environment through Decomposition.

CHAPTER 4

Layers of the atmosphere
1. the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere.
Global Wind Belts
1. the prevailing westerlies, the tropical easterlies, and the polar easterlies.
Ocean circulation including upwelling
1. Ocean circulation is a key regulator of climate by storing and transporting heat, carbon, nutrients and freshwater all around the world.
  1. Upwelling is a process in which deep, cold water rises toward the surface.
Salt water vs freshwater aquatic ecosystems
1. Salt water-Marine ecosystems are aquatic environments with high levels of dissolved salt. These include the open ocean, the deep-sea ocean, and coastal marine ecosystems.
2. Freshwater-Fresh water is a precious resource on Earth's surface. It is also home to many diverse fish, plant and crustacean species. The habitats that freshwater ecosystems provide consist of lakes, rivers, ponds, wetlands, streams and springs.
Tundra
1. Extremely cold climate.
2. Low biotic diversity.
3. Simple vegetation structure.
4. Limitation of drainage.
5. Short season of growth and reproduction.
6. Energy and nutrients in the form of dead organic material.
7. Large population oscillations.
Tropical Rainforest
1. Very wet with over 2,000 mm of rainfall per year.
2. Very warm
3. The atmosphere is hot and humid
4. The climate is consistent all year round. There are no seasons.
Temperate Forest
1. Deciduous forests have a long, warm growing season as one of four distinct seasons.
2. There is abundant moisture.
3. The soil typically is rich. ...
4. Tree leaves are arranged in strata: canopy, understory, shrub, and ground.
Temperate Grassland
1. cold winters and warm summers with some rain.
Savanna
1. vegetation type that grows under hot, seasonally dry climatic conditions
2. open tree canopy (i.e., scattered trees) above a continuous tall grass understory
Taiga/Boreal Forest
1. long, cold winters
2. high annual precipitation
3. the presence of coniferous trees

CHAPTER 5

Species richness vs. evenness
1. Species richness-the number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape or region.
2. Species evenness-commonness or rarity of a species.
Bottleneck effect
1. Caused by…
  1. an environmental disaster, the hunting of a species to the point of extinction, or habitat destruction that results in the deaths of organisms.
2. Definition…
  1. an extreme example of genetic drift that happens when the size of a population is severely reduced.
Allopatric speciation (geographic isolation)
1. speciation that occurs through geographic isolation of two populations or groups of populations.
Generalist species
1. A species able to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and that can make use of a variety of different resources
Specialist species
1. A species that can thrive only in restrictive environmental conditions and can make use of only a few different (even only one) resources

CHAPTER 6

Keystone
1. a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically.
Indicator Species
1. serve as focal points for researchers to understand the effects of climate change and pollution on specific ecosystems.
Species Interaction
1. competition
  1. an interaction between organisms or species in which both require one or more resources that are in limited supply
2. mutualism
  1. the ecological interaction between two or more species where each species has a net benefit.
3. parasitism
  1. a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life.
4. commensalism
  1. a relationship between individuals of two species in which one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without either harming or benefiting the latter.
Coevolution
1. cases where two (or more) species reciprocally affect each other's evolution.
Resource Partitioning
1. a process of natural selection that will force competitors to use resources differently.
K-selected
1. grows slowly until k is reached
2. large animals/birds
3. reproduce late/fewer offspring
R-selected
1. population grows quickly; leads to die off
2. reproduce early/many offspring
3. smaller animals
Density dependent population control
1. A factor that influences an individual’s probability of survival and reproduction in a manner that depends on the size of the population.
Density independent population control
1. A factor that has the same effect on an individual’s probability of survival and the amount of reproduction at any population size.
Biotic potential
1. the rate at which a species reproduces with unlimited conditions.
Carrying capacity
1. the maximum number of a species an environment can support indefinitely.
Exponential growth
1. A growth model that estimates a population’s future size ( 𝑁 𝑡 ) after a period of time (t), based on the intrinsic growth rate (r) and the number of reproducing individuals currently in the population
Logistic growth
1. A growth model that describes a population whose growth is initially exponential, but slows as the population approaches the carrying capacity of the environment.
Primary succession
1. Ecological succession occurring on surfaces that are initially devoid of soil.
Secondary succession
1. The succession of plant life that occurs in areas that have been disturbed but have not lost their soil.
Theory of island biogeography
1. A theory that demonstrates the dual importance of habitat size and distance in determining species richness.
2. the biodiversity and number of species inhabiting an island is impacted by the island's land size and degree of isolation.

CHAPTER 7 HUMAN POPULATION

Crude birth rate
1. The number of births per 1,000 individuals per year.
Crude death rate
1. The number of deaths per 1,000 individuals per year.
Infant mortality
1. The number of deaths of children under 1 year of age per 1,000 live births.
Life expectancy
1. The average number of years that an infant born in a particular year in a particular country can be expected to live, given the current average life span and death rate in that country.
Total fertility
1. An estimate of the average number of children that each woman in a population will bear throughout her childbearing years.
Replacement level fertility
1. The total fertility rate required to offset the average number of deaths in a population in order to maintain the current population size.
The demographic transition
1. The theory that as a country moves from a subsistence economy to industrialization and increased affluence it undergoes a predictable shift in population growth.
Calculating population change
1. CBR-CDR/10
Calculating doubling time
1. 70/growth rate

CHAPTER 8 EARTH SYSTEMS

In general what happens at each plate boundary (divergent, convergent, transform) including:
1. subduction zones
  1. convergent
2. mid ocean ridges
  1. divergent
3. earthquakes
  1. convergent
4. volcanoes
  1. convergent
5. tsunamis
  1. convergent
6. mountain formation
  1. convergent

CHAPTER 18 CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY

Causes of biodiversity loss
1. Habitat loss
2. Invasive species
3. Pollution
4. Climate change
5. Overharvesting
ESA
1. Endangered species act
CITES
1. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
Invasive Species and their problems (Ex: Burmese pythons, zebra mussels, kudzu, starlings, Asian carp)

CHAPTER 19 GLOBAL CHANGE

Impacts of global warming/ climate change
1. Ocean Acidification
  1. An increase in the acidity of the oceans.
  2. release and absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.
2. Rising Sea Levels
  1. glaciers and ice sheets worldwide are melting and adding water to the ocean.
3. Shifting biomes
  1. the migration of certain species of trees to higher altitudes or latitudes as they seek cooler climates
Greenhouse gasses
1. Gases in Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat near the surface.
Mitigation
1. repairing/rehabilitating a damage ecosystem or compensation for damage most often by providing a substitute or replacement area
Adaptation
1. Any genetically controlled structural, physiological, or behavioral characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce under a given set of environmental conditions.