Ecology Essentials
This term refers to any living part of an ecosystem, such as plants or animals, that affects other organisms.
What is a Biotic Factor?
This is a permanent "mistake" or change in a DNA sequence and is the source of all new alleles.
What is a Mutation?
These are the two primary products of photosynthesis, which also serve as the reactants for cellular respiration.
What are Glucose and Oxygen?
This process drives evolution by allowing organisms better "fit" for their environment to survive and reproduce.
What is Natural Selection?
This is the percentage of energy that typically gets passed from one trophic level to the next.
What is 10%?
This type of species has a massive effect on its ecosystem; for example, sea otters prevent sea urchins from destroying kelp forests.
What is a Keystone Species?
An individual is described as this if they have two different alleles for a specific gene, such as "Bb" for eye color.
What is Heterozygous?
This organelle is known as the "powerhouse of the cell" and is the primary site of cellular respiration.
What is the Mitochondria?
In the phrase "survival of the fittest," this is what "fittest" actually means.
What is the Best "fit" for a specific environment?
These are the building blocks (monomers) that make up proteins.
What are Amino Acids?
This evolutionary process occurs when two similar species evolve to use shared resources at different times or places to avoid competition.
What is Niche (or Resource) Partitioning?
Often called "molecular scissors," these special proteins find and cut DNA at specific sequences.
What are Restriction Enzymes?
Often called "leaf sweat," this is the process by which water vapor is lost from a plant through its stomata.
What is Transpiration?
When comparing two species to see how closely they are related, this type of evidence (like DNA) is considered more reliable than structural evidence.
What is Molecular evidence?
To be considered "organic," a molecule must contain these two elements.
What are Carbon and Hydrogen?
This specific term describes the struggle between organisms for limited resources like food, water, or space.
What is Competition?
In gel electrophoresis, these types of DNA fragments move the fastest and farthest from the starting wells.
What are Small fragments?
This type of cell division results in two daughter cells that are identical to the parent cell, used for growth and repair.
What is Mitosis?
This is the process by which living things change over many generations as species adapt to their environment.
What is Evolution?
Between carbohydrates and lipids, this macromolecule contains more energy.
What are Lipids (Fats)?
This describes the specific role an organism plays in its community, including what it eats and its range of tolerance for pH and temperature.
What is a Niche?
This lab method is used to sort and separate DNA pieces based on their size using an electric current.
What is Gel Electrophoresis?
These two specialized cells surround each stoma to regulate the opening and closing for gas exchange and water control.
What are Guard Cells?
These are the two types of evidence used to compare species.
What are Structural and Molecular evidence?
This element, which comes from the soil, must be combined with the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen from sugars to build proteins.
What is Nitrogen?