Chapter 52 Ecology & Distribution Of Life

Question 1

What is ecology

Answer 1

-study of interactions. Esteem organisms and their environment

Question 2

How is weather and climate different

Answer 2

• weather is short term and at a particular location

- climate is average atmospheric consisting over long period of time

Question 3

What factors affect climate? How do they affect the climate?

Answer 3

• solar energy, seasonal change, air circulation and rainfall, altitude, landforms, ocean currents, El Niño
• affects formations of specific ecosystems and biomes, affects what species can live there and their evolutionary response

Question 4

What is an ecosystem? What characterizes an ecosystem?

Answer 4

• interactions of living organisms in a given area between organisms with the surrounding abiotic environment
• characterized by climate, dominant vegetation

Question 5

What is a biome? What factors determine a biome? How do they differ from each other

Answer 5

• a biome is a zone of ecosystems

- temperature, climate, what lives there etc

Question 6

What defines a terrestrial biome? What plants and animals live there

Answer 6

• average temperature and rainfall, seasonality, variable or constant temperature, variable or constant rain fall
• predominant plant species producers affect which other organisms live there

-tropical rain forest, desert

Question 7

What defines an aquatic biome? What are the different categories for aquatic biomes? How do they differ from one another?

Answer 7

• defined by salinity (marine vs freshwater), water movement, water depth, deep water
• rivers, intertidal zones

Question 8

Solar energy

Answer 8

Intensity or solar radiation varies with altitude

• less solar energy at higher and lower altitudes the poles
• higher amount of energy at equator

Question 9

Seasonal change

Answer 9

• planets movement through space, planets tilt of axis

- tropics have greatest annual input of solar radiation, least seasonal variation

Question 10

Air circulation and rainfall

Answer 10

-in tropics: warm, moist, air rises and expands, coils, drops moisture it rains and flows toward poles

Question 11

Landforms, what is the rain shadow effect?

Answer 11

Winds pick up moist air from the ocean
-windward: air rises, cools, releases moisture, lush green vegetation
Leeward: air descends, warms, picks up moisture from land, arid dry conditions, desert

Question 12

El Niño

Answer 12

• surface temperature change in the Pacific Ocean
• occurs every 2-7 years
• extreme climate disruptions: flooding and drought