Individuals and Populations
What are the 3 different types of adaptations?
Physiological responses
Sweating, increased erythrocyte production, making “antifreeze”
Morphological capabilities
Thick fur coats during the winter
Behavioral responses
Moving from one habitat to another
Define a biological community.
Multiple species that occur and interact at any particular locality.
What is a limiting nutrient?
Limiting Nutrient is the weak link in an ecosystem, which is in the shortest supply relative to the needs of the environment, typically can be nitrogen and phosphorus for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and iron for algal populations in the oceans.
This biome is characterized by high temperature and high rainfall, with very high biodiversity and biomass, no seasonal changes, and are located between 10° N and S. They are disappearing due to logging and agriculture.
Tropical Rainforests
What are metapopulations?
Differentiate fundamental and realized niches.
Fundamental niche
Entire niche that a species is capable of using,
Realized niche
Niche the animal is actually using
What is the percentage of solar radiant energy captured by primary producers and what percentage of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next?
These biomes have seasonal temperatures with warm, dry summers and wet, cold winters, between 30° and 40° N and S, evergreen shrubs and trees, and common fires.
Temperate Shrublands and Woodlands - Chaparral
What are the 3 spacing patterns of populations?
Random spacing: individuals do not interact strongly with one another; not common in nature
Uniform spacing: behavioral interactions, resource competition
Clumped spacing: uneven distribution of resources; common in nature
What is a keystone species? Give an example.
- Species whose effects on the composition of communities are greater than one might expect based on their abundance
-Keystone species manipulate the environment which creates new habitats and resources for other organisms.
-Beavers, humans, etc.
What is a top-down trophic-level interaction?
When effects flow down trophic level, such as human removal of carnivores causing prey of those predators to become more abundant.
These biomes have seasonal temperatures with warm, wet summers and cold, dry winters, located between 30° and 50° latitude, dominated by grasses that penetrate deep into the soil, and rich, fertile topsoil.
Temperate Grasslands - Prairie
What is the cost of reproduction? What kind of trade-off is involved?
Natural selection seeks to maximize lifetime reproductive success, but there is balance between the number of offspring produced and the investment per offspring.
Differentiate primary and secondary succession.
Primary succession is where a community changes from simple to complex from a bare, lifeless substrate such as open water and rocks and gradually changes as organisms move into the area and change its nature. Secondary succession is where an existing community is disturbed and species alter the habitat afterward and make certain resources available that favors other species entering the habitat.
What are bottom-up trophic-level interactions?
When primary productivity is low, producer populations cannot support herbivore populations, whereas when it's high the herbivore populations increase and the carnivores increase as well. Flows from the bottom.
These biomes stretch in unbroken circles around the entire globe, located between 50° and 65° N, with long, severe winters, thick permafrost, and evergreen, conifer trees.
Boreal Forests - Taiga.
What's the difference between a K-selected and an r-selected population?
K-selected populations - adapted to thrive when population is near its carrying capacity when resources are limited and the cost of reproduction is high.
r-selected populations - adapted to thrive when population is far below carrying capacity, resources are abundant, reproductive rates are high and the cost of reproduction is low.
Explain in detail the intermediate disturbance hypothesis.
Communities experiencing moderate amounts of disturbance will have higher levels of species richness than communities experiencing either little or great amounts of disturbance.
What is the difference between productivity, gross primary productivity, and net primary productivity?
Productivity - the rate at which the organisms in the primary producer trophic level collectively synthesize new organic matter.
GPP - total new organic matter.
NPP - the GPP minus respiration.
Tell the difference between oligotrophic and eutrophic waters.
Eutrophic water: high in nutrients, densely populated with algae and plant material
Low in dissolved oxygen in summer
Light does not penetrate the water column.
Oligotrophic water: low in nutrients, usually high in oxygen
Crystal clear conditions because of the low amount of organic matter
Light penetrates deep in the water column