Ecosystems
What is an ecosystem?
All of the abiotic and biotic factors in an area.
Which essential nutrient is considered the building block of life?
Carbon
What type of animal eats a variety of foods?
Omnivore
Swarming provides prey animals with...
Protection
What is commensalism?
Only one species benefits without harming or benefitting the other (+, 0)
List 3 abiotic factors
Sunlight, water, salinity, temperature, pH, minerals, wind, weather, fire, time, etcetera.
These two nutrients must be taken up by plants through their roots instead of through their leaves.
Nitrogen and Phosphorus
True or False? Plants create their own food.
True. Plants create their own food, but they do not create their own energy--that comes from the conversion of sunlight during photosynthesis.
What is the primary driver of migration for animals who migrate with the seasons?
Food availability
What are the 3 characteristics of a niche?
Habitat, activity pattern, and resources
A biome is shaped by these two abiotic characteristics.
Climate: Temperature and Precipitation
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased exponentially over the past 150 years or so. What is the biggest driver of Carbon entering the atmosphere from the biosphere today?
Humans burning fossil fuels
How does photosynthesis contribute to a trophic (food) chain?
Energy from the sun is converted by plants into bioavailable energy for other organisms.
Fecundity is an organism's ability to...
Grow and reproduce
Which type of succession takes longest for an ecosystem to be established?
Primary Succession
What is the difference between ecology and ecosystem?
Ecology is the study between living organisms and their environment, and an ecosystem is the place where interactions between abiotic and biotic factors occur.
This type of organism breaks down dead organic matter chemically so that the nutrients from those organisms can reenter the ecosystem.
Decomposers (bacteria and fungi)
A primary producer has 100 kcals of energy stored in its tissues. How many kcals of energy will a secondary consumer get?
1kcal (Rule of 10)
Ecological succession typically occurs due to what type of ecosystem factor?
Abiotic
Think critically: If an ecosystem has a high level of biodiversity (lots of different kinds of organisms), would it be more or less resilient in the face of environmental changes?
More resilient
Organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biosphere
Matter is continuously recycled throughout the different spheres, but energy is not. What type of energy drives these processes, and what type of energy is the extra lost as when we move up the trophic levels?
Sunlight (solar radiation); Heat energy (from carrying out bodily processes)
Think critically: On a graph with time on the x axis and population on the y axis. The population is trending downward. In this case, is birth rate or death rate higher?
(in Slides)
Death rate
Think critically: Based on the rise and fall of populations over time in the graph, which line represents a prey organism, the dotted line or the solid line?
(in Slides)
Dotted Line
Ms. Kruse went to Mount Rainier this past weekend. Mount Rainier has glaciers that have caused the landscape to exhibit primary succession. At which point in this image is a pioneer species most likely to be found?
(in Slides)
B