Spheres & Levels of Organization
All living plants, animals, fungi, and microscopic bacteria on Earth belong to this planetary sphere.
What is the biosphere?
Global species richness is generally highest near this 0° line of latitude due to warm, humid year-round weather.
What is the Equator?
Raccoons live in forests or cities and eat varied diets, making them this type of species with a broad ecological niche.
What is a generalist species?
Gannets building nests spaced evenly exactly two feet apart across a breeding colony show this type of dispersion pattern.
What is uniform dispersion?
The maximum population size of a species that a specific environment can support over time is symbolized by (K) and called this.
What is carrying capacity?
A rotting tree log containing insects, mushrooms, and damp soil is a small-scale natural system known by this term.
What is a microecosystem?
As you travel deeper from the surface of the ocean down to 2,000 meters, these two non-living physical factors both decrease.
What are sunlight and temperature?
The full range of environmental conditions where a species could potentially survive based on abiotic factors alone is called this.
What is the fundamental niche?
Unchecked population growth occurring under ideal conditions with unlimited resources produces this $J$-shaped curve model.
What is exponential growth?
Natural disasters like fires, floods, and hurricanes limit population size regardless of how crowded animals are, making them this type of factor.
What are density-independent limiting factors?
Wind speed, water currents, sunlight intensity, and soil minerals are all classified as this type of environmental factor.
What are abiotic factors?
Aquatic environments with a salt concentration under 1%—such as lakes, rivers, and wetlands—are placed in this category.
What are freshwater ecosystems?
When an environmental variable shifts past an organism's upper or lower limits of tolerance, it enters this zone where zero organisms survive.
What are extreme conditions (zone of intolerance)?
A population declines when death rates exceed birth rates, or when this movement out of a population exceeds immigration.
What is emigration?
Species with short lifespans that produce large numbers of offspring with little to no parental care are classified as having these traits.
What are r-selected traits?
While 100 monarch butterflies in a meadow make up a population, adding the bees, plants, and moist dirt creates this higher level of organization.
What is an ecosystem?
As moist air rises and cools going over a mountain, rain falls on one side, leaving the opposite side of the mountain with this condition.
What is a dry / drier condition (rain shadow)?
Mountains, oceans, and deserts that physically block an organism from expanding its geographic range are known as these.
What are physical barriers?
As resources become scarce, population growth slows down and levels off, forming this $S$-shaped curve model.
What is logistic growth?
When bark beetles rapidly overshoot carrying capacity during warm spring weather and crash in freezing winter, they show this population dynamic
What are boom-bust dynamics?
A forest fire burns living trees, creates heavy air smoke, and bakes the rocky ground. Name the three Earth spheres directly involved in this event.
What are the biosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere?
Marine species richness does not always follow strict latitudinal trends because these moving ocean water patterns mix temperature and nutrients.
What are ocean currents?
When aggressive bass drive trout out of warm downstream waters, competition restricts the trout to this smaller actual niche.
What is the realized niche?
Because natural populations shift between periods of growth, stability, and decline over long periods, scientists describe them using this term describing its shifting.
What is dynamic?
Elephants live long lives, produce few young, provide high parental care, and stabilize near carrying capacity using these life history traits.
What are K-selected traits?