Ecology

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

how organisms react to each-other & their environment, patterns of distribution and abundance.

Question 2

Distribution

Answer 2

Can occur b/c of physical barriers such as rivers or roads. and b/c of climactic barriers the equator, or more north you go the colder it is.

Question 3

Abundance is affected by what?

Answer 3

Varies with many factors like location, and other biotic and abiotic factors

Question 4

Population Ecology

Answer 4

A group of the same species that live in the same area @ the same time

Question 5

Patterns of growth what are the two types and how are they different?

Answer 5

Logistic and exponential

Question 6

How do you calculate per capita birth and death rate?

Answer 6

B/N and D/N

Question 7

What are density dependent factors and how are they different from density independent factors.

Answer 7

Density independent factors are usually abiotic. Density dependent factors are usually biotic.

Question 8

What are life history traits

Answer 8

types of survivorship. Also know survivability curves type 1,2 & 3

Question 9

What is the difference between K selected species and r-selected species?

Answer 9

K-selected usually have low fecundity and high survivorship. r selected species have high fecundity and low survivorship.

Question 10

What is fecundity?

Answer 10

Fecundity is an organism’s reproductive capacity (the number of offspring it’s capable of producing). The higher the fecundity of an organism, the less energy it’s likely to invest in each offspring, both in terms of direct resources – such as fuel reserves placed in an egg or seed – and in terms of parental care.

Question 11

What is a community?

Answer 11

All the species that interact with each-other in a given area.

Question 12

What are the five types of biotic interactions?

Answer 12

Amensalism (-/0)
Mutualism (+/+)
Consumption (+/-)
Commensalism (+/0)
Competition (-/-)

Question 13

Niche

Answer 13

resources used by a species their role in an ecosystem.

Question 14

What is a fundamental niche

Answer 14

a fundamental niche is based on physiological tolerance and the range of resources an organism is able to use in the absences of biotic interactions.

Question 15

What is a realized niche?

Answer 15

The range of resources used when there is competition

Question 16

Interspecific competition, what are the 2 possible outcomes?

Answer 16

1) competitive exclusion: The competitive exclusion principle says that two species can’t coexist if they occupy exactly the same niche (competing for identical resources).
2) Stable coexistence (niche partitioning) : Stable coexistence is the long-term persistence of multiple competing species, without any species being competitively excluded by the others, and with each species able to recover from perturbation to low density.

Question 17

How can competition over time lead to evolutionary change?

Answer 17

When two species compete for the same limiting resource the reduction of the niche overlap may lead to evolutionary changes in both species. Alternatively the competitively dominant species does not change and is maybe even able to expand its niche, and thus reduces niche space available for the other species

Question 18

What is ecological succession?

Answer 18

Succession: is a process by which the mix of species in an area change over time. Gradually one community is replaced with another until a climax community takes over.

Question 19

what is primary succession and how it is different from secondary succession?

Answer 19

Primary: nothing remains after the disturbance, just rock and gravel needs a pioneer species to come to re start the ecological processes.
Secondary: Soil and nutrients remain, climax community will be reached much faster.

Question 20

3 factors that influence patterns of succession?

Answer 20

1) species traits 2) Interactions amongst species 3) historical and environmental circumstances

Question 21

what the the five trophic levels?

Answer 21

Producers
Primary consumers
secondary consumers
tertiary consumers
& decomposers and detrivores

Question 22

How much energy from one trophic level is passed to the next?

Answer 22

10%

Question 23

how do you calculate NNP

Answer 23

NNP= GPP -R

Question 24

Where is carbon stored and where is it released?

Answer 24

In the ground, oceans, plants peet bogs.
it is released by fossil fuel emissions, logging, river erosion and cellular respiration

Question 25

How does carbon enter plants?

Answer 25

It is captured by plants during photosynthesis and is incorporated into organic molecules.

Question 26

Where is nitrogen stored? & how is it a limiting factors?

Answer 26

It is stored mostly in the atmosphere , but its triple bonded so it cannot be used by plants in this form. The rest is in the soil, ocean and living organisms. It is a limiting factor because it can only become usable when it is fixed or goes through nitrification. It returns to the atmosphere when it enters the water cycle.

Question 27

How are we as humans changing the nitrogen cycle?

Answer 27

When we put nitrogen into-our fertilizers we are adding too much to our ecosystems and this enters of water ways which is harmful to different plants and animals. It also creates dead zones.

Question 28

What is BC's great bear rainforest, and why is it so efficient?

Answer 28

Its a forest going from the bottom of BC up to Alaska is it very productive b/c of good temperatures high humidity and the stable amounts of nitrogen in the soil brought by the coexistence of salmon and bears