Species and population
What is a niche?
A niche describes the particular set of abiotic and biotic conditions and resources to which an organism or population responds.
What are the 3 ecological pyramids and what units are used to measure them?
Pyramid of biomass (Measured in grams of biomass per square metre (gm2)
pyramid of Numbers (Measured in Numbers)
Pyramids of Energy (Measured in Joules)
What is primary productivity? Give an example.
Primary productivity is the process by which organisms make their own food from inorganic sources. The majority of primary producers are terrestrial plants and microbial life, such as algae.
Define Biome.
A biome is a large area characterized by its vegetation, soil, climate, and wildlife
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What are the 5 types of relationships? Describe each.
Predation, Herbivory, Parasitism, Mutualism, Commensalism
What is the difference between a food web and a food chain?
A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web connects more organisms from the different food chains in an ecosystem.
What if the formula to find NPP (Net Primary Productivity) and GPP (Gross Primary Productivity)?
NPP = GPP - R The total amount of energy or carbon dioxide fixed by plants during photosynthesis.
GPP = NPP + R The energy or carbon dioxide remaining after plants have used some for respiration. This is the energy available to consumers (herbivores, decomposers).
R (Respiration): The energy or carbon dioxide lost by plants during their own metabolic processes
What is the Tri-cellular model of atmospheric circulation and name the 3 cells.
The tricellular model explains the meridional circulation of the atmosphere. According to this model, the global air circulation can be divided into three cells.
Hadley cell, Ferrel cell and Poral cell.
What are quadrats and transects?
A transect is a straight line that cuts through a natural landscape so that standardized observations and measurements can be made.
Quadrat is used to measure the population in a square
What is carrying capacity and overshoot?
Carrying capacity can be defined as a species' average population size in a particular habitat.
Overshoot is the extent to which human populations have risen above the sustainable use of resources through their resource consumption.
Why is the pyramid of biomass not always upright?
Because it does not consider the size of the organism.
What are transfers and transformations?
A transfer is when the flow does not involve a change of form and a transformation is a flow involving a change of form
What kind of animals can you typically see in a Taiga biome?
pine marten, moose, bobcats, black bears, fishers, Canada lynx, and grizzly bears
What is the Mark-recaptured method?
The Mark-Recapture technique is used to estimate the size of a population where it is impractical to count every individual.
Capture – Mark – Recapture
What is the difference between intraspecfic and interspecfic competition
Intraspecific- competition between members of the same species
Interspecific- competition between animals of different species.
What is Biomass?
Biomass is renewable organic material that comes from plants and animals.
What is Carbon cycle and what are the steps in the carbon cycle?
The carbon cycle is nature's way of reusing carbon atoms, which travel from the atmosphere into organisms in the Earth and then back into the atmosphere over and over again.
Carbon present in the atmosphere is absorbed by plants for photosynthesis. These plants are then consumed by animals and carbon gets bioaccumulated into their bodies. These animals and plants eventually die, and upon decomposing, carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
Differentiate Zonation and succession.
Zonation refers to changes in community along an environmental gradient due to factors such as changes in altitude, latitude, tidal level or distance from shore (coverage by water). Succession is the process of change over time in an ecosystem involving pioneer, intermediate and climax communities.
What is the Simpsons and Lincon index
State their formulas.
Simpson's Diversity Index is a measure of diversity which takes into account the number of species present, as well as the relative abundance of each species. As species richness and evenness increase, so does diversity increases.
The Lincoln Index allows conservationists to estimate the population sizes of individual animal species. Individuals are captured, marked, released back into the population and recaptured. Results are then put into an equation to give a population estimate.
N = (n1 x n2) / m2
Differeciate 'r' and 'k' strategists.
The key difference between r strategist and K strategist is that the r strategist lives in unstable and unpredictable environments while the K strategist lives in more stable environment. Because of this environmental conditions, the r strategists produce many offspring while the K strategists produce few offsprings.
State the Disadvantages of each ecological pyramid.
Pyramid of numbers: They do not consider the organism's size so may not always resemble a pyramid. If the number is too great accuracy is lost.
Pyramid of Energy: An organism's biomass production rate is required, which involves measuring growth and reproduction through time. There is still the difficulty of assigning the organisms to a specific trophic level.
Pyramid of Biomass: Organisms must be killed to measure dry mass, time can affect results.
What molecules do plants produce using nitrogen?
chlorophyll
What is primary succession and secondary succession?
In primary succession, newly exposed or newly formed rock is colonized by living things for the first time. In secondary succession, an area that was previously occupied by living things is disturbed, then re-colonized following the disturbance
Differentiate species richness and diversity.
Species richness is a measure of the number of different species in a community. An index of diversity describes the relationship between the number of species in a community and the number of individuals in each species