Responses to the Environment
What are diurnal organisms?
Organisms that are most active during the day
“Maintaining a stable internal environment despite external changes” – What is the term for this definition?
Homeostasis
Why do abiotic factors help to determine what species can live in what environment?
Animals have adapted and evolved to be able to live in certain conditions that other animals could not thrive in.
Name at least two threats to biodiversity
Habitat loss
Introduced species (invasive species)
Over harvesting
Large scale environmental change
What is the effect of greenhouse gases?
Climate change → extreme weather and climate shifts; increase in temperature (warming).
Bees are known for using a waggle dance in order to communicate where a food source is to other bees. What kind of communication are these bees using?
Tactile Cues
Describe the difference between Endotherms and Ectotherms.
Endotherms → internal heat, stable temperature, need more energy
Ectotherms → external heat, variable temperature, less energy needed
Distribution is where the animals in a population interact with each other. What is the rarest form of distribution
Random distribution
What does trophic structure refer to?
The feeding relationships between organisms
Rapid environmental change is occurring in today’s world. The main issues of this are nutrient enrichment, toxins, and climate change. What is the main driver of this environmental change?
Humans
Torpor is the daily reduction of metabolic rate used to conserve energy in animals. What animals typically use this process?
Migrating birds
Elements move through biotic and abiotic parts of the ecosystem. What are the major cycles?
Water, Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus Cycles
When will a population exponentially increase in size?
When the birth rate is greater than the death rate and the population is not constrained by resources
What does Simpson’s Index of Diversity do, and what does a higher index value mean?
It quantifies diversity instead of relying on intuition, and a higher value means more diversity in the community.
Evapotranspiration is the water evaporation from soil/plants. Where is evapotranspiration high, and what does this mean for species richness?
It is high in warm, wet climates, and it means a higher species richness.
Define kinesis and taxis. Why are they important in animal behavior?
Kinesis - the undirected movement of an animal based on external stimulus
taxis - directed movement towards or away from a stimulus
Both taxis and kinesis are important because they are innate behaviors that animals are born with.
What is the average percentage of energy transferred between trophic levels?
10%
What are density dependent limiting factors?
Competition, predation, disease
There are three different kinds of species that have disproportionately large effects on community structure: Foundation Species, Keystone Species, and Ecosystem Engineers. Which of these three is a dominant species?
Foundation Species
Larger geographic areas have more species as they contain more habitats and resources. What is the name of this relationship?
Species-area curve
Ethology is the study of organisms in their natural environment. In 1973 the founder won a Nobel Prize for studying the instincts and genetically programmed behaviors in fish, insects, and birds. What are at least two of the four focuses of ethology?
Causation
Development
Function /adaptive value
Phylogeny
What type of survivorship curve do r-selected species show, and what curve do K-selected species show?
R-selected → Type III
K-selected → Type I
What happens when a population goes over carrying capacity and why?
The population will decline again until it is under the carrying capacity. There are enough resources to sustain the amount of animals in the population about carrying capacity
What is another name for Gause’s Law and what does it propose?
It is the competitive exclusion principle that proposes that two species competing for the same limited resources cannot coexist.
Due to evolutionary history and climate, species diversity differs from place to place. Where is species diversity the highest and why?
It is highest in the tropics, and it decreases towards the poles. Tropical regions are older and less disrupted, so they have had more time to develop speciation. They also have more sunlight and precipitation, which increases productivity.