Introduction and Climate (Lectures 1-2)

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

• The study of how species survive and under what conditions they live
• Looks at the distribution and abundance of species

Question 2

What 2 interactions do we look at in ecology? Why?

Answer 2

• Biotic (interactions with living things) and abiotic (non-living things)
• It is important to study these two interactions so we can see under what conditions species need to survive

Question 3

Why do we care about abundance in relation to ecology?

Answer 3

In order to understand the resources that are available to us for survival as well as how many of a viral species is to measure their danger to us.

Question 4

What is population?

Answer 4

The number of the same individual species in one area

Question 5

Community

Answer 5

All the species living in one area

Question 6

Ecosystem

Answer 6

All the living and non-living things in one area

Question 7

What main factors limit a species’ range?

Answer 7

• Climate
  -Resources
• Dispersal
  -Competition, Mutualism, and predation

Question 8

What is the Sixth Extinction? How is different from the others?

Answer 8

The sixth extinction is the mass extinction of vertebrates and it is different because it is being caused by humans

Question 9

Ecological Niche

Answer 9

• under what conditions a species needs to survive
• it’s not an all or nothing principle, but more of a gradient which means that species will have different toleration levels

Question 10

Hutchinson’s Niche
How does it relate to the ecological niche?

Answer 10

• a graph with a sphere that demonstrates the ecological niche visually
• the centre of the sphere represents the optimal conditions for the survival of a species and the further from the centre you go the less chance for survival a species has.

Question 11

Explain how temperature and seasonality vary with latitude.

Answer 11

• The higher latitudinal position you are, the less amount and intensity of light you receive. This is because of the Earth’s tilt and the different angles of the sun’s light hitting earth.
• We have seasonality because as the earth rotates on a tilt it will receive varying levels of sunlight at a time

Question 12

What are Hadley cells?

Answer 12

• strongest force of
• This process helps to explain why it rains near the equator because the hot air cools as it rises, condensing water vapour and when this happens it rains.

Question 13

What are the other atmospheric cells?

Answer 13

Ferrell and polar cells.
Ferrell cells are the second strongest type of cell and it involves moving air to the poles
polar cells are the weakest and involve moving air to the equator

Question 14

Intertropical Convergence zone

Answer 14

• this is the area across the equator that moves north and south seasonally
• the ITCZ is where Hadley cells meet
• they also produce wet and dry seasons across parts of the tropics including Asia and Africa

Question 15

What is the effect of the ITCZ on the tropics?

Answer 15

• As mentioned earlier, the ITCZ produces dry and wet seasons
  -the ITCZ has a particularly intense effect on asia due to its close approximation to the ocean, which produces more thermal energy to push the ITCZ around more

Question 16

Coriolis Effect

Answer 16

• this is when the earth’s rotation is moving faster than the object on the ground, displacing its path trajectory east.

Question 17

Describe wind patterns, specifically where they form and their movement

Answer 17

Winds that form in the west and get pushed to the east is known has westerlies and wind that originates in the east will be called easterlies

Question 18

What is significant about horse latitudes?

Answer 18

there is not a lot of wind production here and it is situated 30 degrees north and south of the equator

Question 19

Doldrums

Answer 19

Situated 5 degrees north and south of equator
-gets a lot of sunlight and due to low pressures, extreme wind and weather conditions arise

Question 20

Tropic of Cancer

Answer 20

• the most north latitude on where sun can directly hit its overhead
• positioned 23.4 degrees north

Question 21

the Tropic of Capricorn

Answer 21

the most south latitude where the sun can appear directly overhead

Question 22

How do mountains affect climate

Answer 22

• at the bottom of mountains, as air rises it starts to cool down and water vapour condensing creating rainfall at the peak
• when the air comes down from the peak it is cold and will appear to be dry when making its way down the mountain

Question 23

How does the ocean impact climate

Answer 23

• the ocean gives off thermal inertia which calms down temperature changes which is why maritimes have moderate climates

Question 24

what are biomes

Answer 24

• biomes are different characteristics determined by vegetation and species occupation

Question 25

Ecological niche modeling

Answer 25

• looks at the distribution of species to see what conditions are favourable for them to live in
• Usually relies on climate

Question 26

Range Shifts

Answer 26

Shifts in species’ distribution

Question 27

How does climate warming relate to range shifting

Answer 27

• If a specific species is only present in a particular area during hotter seasons and leave when it gets colder, climate warming will lengthen the stay of the species who enjoy the warmer temperatures.