Chapter 18 Flashcards
(13 cards)
Compare the biosphere’s four levels of ecology within the context of abiotic and biotic factors. Know your terms organism, population, community, ecosystem, biosphere, abiotic and biotic.
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Define a community, an ecological niche, and the competitive exclusion principle, noting examples of each
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Distinguish between parasitic and mutualistic relationships and describe examples of each.
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Be able to describe and compare and contrast interactions within communities: competition (including competitive exclusion principle and partitioning of resources), mutualism, predation, herbivory, and parasites/pathogens.
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Define and list examples of producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, quaternary consumers, scavengers, detritivores, and decomposers in an ecosystem.
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Distinguish between a food chain and a food web.
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Describe the function of a keystone species in a community. Explain how predation can help maintain species diversity.
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Describe the types and effects of disturbances in communities.
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Distinguish between primary and secondary succession.
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Describe the composition of the levels of an energy pyramid. Explain why energy pyramids usually do not have more than five levels.
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Explain why it takes about the same amount of photosynthetic productivity to produce 10 kilograms of corn as 1 kilogram of bacon. In other words, understand the implications of the 10% rule on the human population.
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Understand the concept of Conservation of Energy and concept of Entropy. Note: Chapter 20 assumes you know this. You will need to read the section on energy in Chapter 5 – p. 76-78. Understand how these energy laws related to the concept of a energy pyramid.
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Human impact on communities: what happens when we introduce non-native species? Why do non-native species have this effect? What are some examples of non-native species that have been introduced?
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