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F Environmental Science > Test 1 > Flashcards

Flashcards in Test 1 Deck (12)
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1
Q

carrying capacity

A

Population size where the population stops growing, and the resources are being used as soon as they’re produced.

2
Q

logistic growth curve

A

s-shaped trajectory where the population grows rapidly and then slows until it reaches the carrying capacity.

3
Q

range of tolerance

A

The span between the minimum and maximum temperatures that an organism can survive at.

4
Q

ecological niche

A

Every interaction an organism has with it’s ecosystem, the various activities such as what it eats, its affects on the flow of energy, etc.

5
Q

fitness

A

individuals with adaptations that increase their reproductive success compared to to others in the population.

6
Q

adaptive radiation

A

the process in which several species evolve from a single ancestor to occupy a new ecological niche.

7
Q

directional selection

A

Natural selection that favors the survival of individual organisms at one extreme end of the range of variation within a population (i.e. finches with the largest beaks survived)

8
Q

stabilizing selection

A

selection that favors traits that fall in the middle range of variation within a population (i.e. average body size)

9
Q

disruptive selection

A

situations where individuals with genetic traits on the extreme ends of the range are more likely to survive than individuals with average traits (i.e. finches with really small beaks for small seeds or really large beaks for large seeds surviving.)

10
Q

genetic drift

A

a change in the frequency of an inherited trait in a population that is brought about by a chance event

11
Q

reproductive isolation

A

members of one species do not interbreed with members of other species, even closely related ones

12
Q

breeding barriers

A

geographical, temporal, or structural (differences in reproductive techniques) barriers that separate closely related species from one another