3.1- What is Ecology

Question 1

What is the biosphere?

Answer 1

consists of all life on Earth, and all parts of the Earth in which life exists, including land, water, atmosphere, every organisim from bacteria to trees to whales or mold spores to humans

Question 2

How big is the biosphere

Answer 2

Extends from 8 km above Earth’s surface to 11 km below the surface of the ocean

Question 3

What is ecology?

Answer 3

the scientific study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their physical environments

Question 4

What is the result of interactions within the biosphere?

Answer 4

interactions with in the biosphere lead to a web of interdependence, leanding to organismis responding to their environment, resulting in an ever-chainging and dynamic biosphere

Question 5

Economics is

Answer 5

ecology but just about humans

Question 6

What are the levels of organization?

from smallest to largest

Answer 6

species, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biosphere

Question 7

What is a species?

Answer 7

a group of similar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring

Question 8

What is a population?

Answer 8

a group of indviduals that belong to the same species and live in the same area

Question 9

What is a community?

Answer 9

an assemblage of differnet populations that live together in a defined area

Question 10

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 10

all the organisms that live in a place together with their physical environment

Question 11

What is a biome?

Answer 11

a group of ecosystems that share similar climates and typical organisms

Question 12

Environment is

Answer 12

all conditions/factors surronding an organism, biotic and abiotic factors

Question 13

What is a biotic factor?

Answer 13

any living part of the envirnoment with which an organisims might interact, including animals, plants, bacteria

Biological influence on organisms

Question 14

What is an abiotic factor?

Answer 14

any nonliving part of the envirnoment, like sunlight, heat, precipitation, wind, water currents, soil type

physical components of an ecosystem

Question 15

What dynamic mix of 2 things shape every enviroment?

Answer 15

biotic and abiotic factors

Question 16

Give an example of a part of the enviroment that is both biotic and abiotic

Answer 16

the muck along the shores of ponds have both sand and mud (abiotic) and decomposing plant material that is foood for bacteria nad fungi that live in the muck (biotic)

Question 17

Give an example of a biotic factor affecting an abiotic factor

Answer 17

leafy canopy of trees shade a pond’s shorline from direct sun and strong wind; strongly affecting the amount of sunlight abd temperature the shoreling recives

Question 18

What 3 methods do ecologists use in their work?

Answer 18

Observation- asking questions
Experimentation- used to test hypothesis
Modeling- make models (ex: w/ math) for events that happen over long distances or time

relies on scientfic methodology

Question 19

Ecology is the study of:

Answer 19

our ‘Living Planet’

Question 20

How people study ecology since it is so big?

Answer 20

break it down into usable parts (biosphere)

Subway sandwhich principle: a bite at a time

Question 21

What is the root if the word ecology?

Answer 21

greek word ‘oikos’ which means house

Question 22

Based on the root of the word ecology, what is the definition?

Answer 22

the study or nature’s ‘houses’ and the organisms that live in those houses; interactions among natures houses based on energy and the nutrients that supply the energy

Question 23

How are ecology and economics related?

Answer 23

humans live in the biosphere and depend on ecological processes to provide food and drinkable water

Question 24

Describe economics

Answer 24

food/water is bought, sold, and traded; agricultre is a big industry in our biosphere

Local economics: big business is tourism because of natural beauty of surrondings

Question 25

example of local species:

Answer 25

white tailed deer, black hills spruce, prairie dog

Question 26

example of local populations

Answer 26

rainbow trout, mountain lions, sharo tail grouse, finches

Question 27

Example of local community:

Answer 27

bison and prairie dogs and snakes and burrowing owls

Question 28

example of ecosystems:

Answer 28

area of Black Hills, prairie, coastal, alpine

Question 29

What is interdependence?

Answer 29

dependence between or amound individual or things ## Footnote physical environment and organisms are interdependent because changes in one cause changes in the other

Question 30

explain the interdependence between sea kelp, sea otters and sea urchins

Answer 30

sea urchins eat and kill sea kelp; sea otters eat sea urchins, therefore regulating the population of sea urchins and keeping the kelp population stable; important because the kelp provides a habitat for many other species

Question 31

What is a keystone species?

Answer 31

a species that has a large effect on its envirnoment, if it were to dissapear, the ecosystem would change dramatically ## Footnote Ex: bison in praire, wolves in yellowstone, sea otters in kelp/costal

Question 32

examples of biomes

Answer 32

grassland, artic, rainforest biomes

Question 33

examples of biotic factors:

Answer 33

population density, precipitation, communicable diseases ## Footnote blue tongue disease in deer

Question 34

examples of abiotic factors:

Answer 34

weather conditions, topography, temperature

Question 35

explain the connection between prairie dogs and wildflowers

Answer 35

scarlet globemallow and foetid marigold rely on prairie dogs to churn the soil and bring nutrients from deep in the earth up; they do this whene they dig holes/build mounds, they cycle the soil and prairie

Question 36

what is Blue Tongue Disease in deer?

Answer 36

Epizootec Hemorrahagic disease casued by mite that carries a virus and bites and infects the deer, leads to blood vessels of deer to rupture; its a cycle- when there are large deer populations mites go around and kill many deer until there are less deer and then the virus stops spreading until next season when there are lots of deer again