Concept 1: Intro to Ecology
What is Ecology?
The study of relationships, between organisms and between organisms and their environment
What are the 3 biogeochemical cycles we have talked about?
Carbon, Water, and Nitrogen
What are the two types of population growth and what to they look like?
Logistic: a curve that flattens out, exponential: a curve that goes straight up
Where does all energy come from?
What is the definition of biotic and abiotic?
Biotic: living
Abiotic: nonliving
What organisms preform vital steps in the carbon and nitrogen cycles? (especially the nitrogen cycle)
Decomposers (bacteria, fungi, worms, etc.)
What is a limiting factor?
Aspects of the environment that limit the size of a population
What is a producer?
Make their own food for energy, autotrophs, use nonliving sources for energy
What are the six levels of ecological organization, in order from smallest to largest?
Organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biosphere
What are the steps of the water cycle in order?
Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration, transpiration
What is a carrying capacity and why does it happen?
The maximum amount of individuals an ecosystem can hold, limiting factors and resources
What is a consumer?
Get energy from eating other living or once living things, heterotrophs
What are the 7 characteristics of life that we talked about?
- composed of cells
- contain DNA or RNA
- capable of growth
- able to reproduce
- respond to stimuli
- adapt and evolve
- have a metabolism (use energy)
If more trees are cut down, how would this affect the water cycle?
Less transpiration, more runoff, less photosynthesis, increase in carbon in the atmosphere
What kind of population growth are humans experiencing?
Exponential
Food chains trace a single flow of energy, food webs show multiple food chains at once and how they interconnect
Give examples of each level of organization, smallest to largest.
Example-
Organism: chipmunk
Population: a bunch of chipmunks
Community: chipmunks, squirrels, bugs, oak trees
Ecosystem: chipmunks, squirrels, bugs, oak trees, water, soil, rocks, sun
Biome: Deciduous Forest
Biosphere: Planet Earth
How do humans increase carbon in the atmosphere?
Combustion from driving cars/burning things, cellular respiration releases carbon
List a biotic and abiotic limiting factor.
Biotic: food, predators, disease
Abiotic: water, natural disasters, climate
How much energy is passed to the next trophic level of a food chain?
10%