Term
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Definition
| global, landscape, ecosystem, community, population, organismal |
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Term
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Definition
| examines the influence of energy and materials on organisms across the biosphere |
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Term
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Definition
focuses on the exchanges of energy,
materials, and organisms across
multiple ecosystems |
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Term
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Definition
| emphasizes energy flow and chemical cycling among the various biotic and abiotic components |
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Term
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Definition
| deals with the whole array of interacting species in a community |
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Term
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Definition
focuses on factors affecting population
size over time |
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Term
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Definition
studies how an organism’s structure physiology and (for animals) behavior
meet environmental challenges |
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Term
| 3 Organismal ecology sub-disciplines |
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Definition
| physiological, evolutionary, and behavioral ecology |
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Term
| Biotic factors that affect the distribution and abundance of organisms |
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Definition
predation (organisms killing and
eating other organisms), herbivory (animals eating plants) or competition (use of the same resource by multiple organisms when the resource is present in insufficient supply for the combined needs of those organisms |
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Term
| Abiotic factors that affect the distribution and abundance of organisms: |
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Definition
| availablity of sunlight and water, temperature, wind, rock and soil characteristics, and catastrophic disturbances, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and volcanic eruptions |
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Term
| What are the different ocean currents? |
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Definition
| Indian Ocean subtropical gyre, North Pacific subtropical gyre, South Pacific subtropical gyre, North Atlantic subtropical gyre, South Atlantic subtropical gyre, and the California and Labrador currents |
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Term
| What is the phenomena of when rising air releases moisture on the windward side of a mountain and where does it occur? |
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Definition
| A rain shadow occurs on the leeward side of a mountain and it creates desert conditions |
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Term
| What is chemical cycling? |
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Definition
| The use and reuse of chemical elements within an ecosystem |
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Term
| What does chemical cycling and energy exchange in an ecosystem depend on? |
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Definition
| The feeding relationships or trophic structure of an ecosystem |
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Term
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Definition
| the sequence of food transfer from trophic level to trophic level |
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Term
| Who are the primary consumers of an ecosystem? |
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Definition
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Term
| Who derives energy from nonliving organic matter? |
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Definition
| Detritivores (decomposers) |
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Term
| What is top-down food control? |
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Definition
| If a consumer limits a prey population |
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Term
| How does a trophic cascade occur? |
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Definition
| changes in top-down control cause conspicuous effects two or three links away in a food web |
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Term
| What is bottom-up control? |
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Definition
| a unidirectional influence from lower to higher trophic levels (for example, the presence or absence of mineral nutrients determines the structures of ecosystems or communities, including the abundance of primary producers) |
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Term
| What is biomagnification? |
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Definition
| In cycling through a food web along with chemical energy, certain molecules increase in relative concentration as they are transferred between trophic levels |
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Term
| What is primary productivity? |
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Definition
| The rate that an ecosystem builds biomass |
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Term
| What is gross primary production (GPP) versus net primary production (NPP)? |
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Definition
| GPP is measured as the conversion of chemical energy from photosynthesis per unit time, whereas NPP is GPP minus energy used by primary producers for respiration |
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Term
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Definition
| Biomes are major life zones defined by a dominant vegetation type and are associated with distinctive sets of abiotic conditions |
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Term
| What does a climograph measure? |
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Definition
| A climograph plots the temperature and precipitation in a region |
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Term
| What is the benthic zone? |
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Definition
| The organic and inorganic sediment at the bottom of all aquatic zones |
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Term
| What temperature boundary separates warm upper layers of water from cold lower layers? |
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Definition
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Term
| What proportion of land area to NPP do tropical wet and tropical seasonal forests account for? |
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Definition
| The cover less than 5% of the Earth's surface but account for over 30% of total NPP |
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Term
| What are the MOST productive aquatic ecosystems on earth? |
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Definition
| Algal beds and coral reefs, wetlands, and estuaries |
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Term
| What is the secondary production of an ecosystem? |
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Definition
| The amount of chemical energy in food converted to new biomass during a given period of time. |
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Term
| What is production efficiency? |
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Definition
| An organism’s production efficiency is the fraction of energy stored in food that is not used for respiration |
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Term
| What are biogeochemical cycles? |
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Definition
| A chemical’s specific route through an ecosystem (nutrient circuit) |
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Term
| What four factors do ecologists focus on when studying biogeochemical cycles? |
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Definition
Each chemical’s biological importance, forms in which each chemical is available or used
by organisms, major reservoirs for each chemical, key processes driving movement of each chemical
through its cycle |
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Term
| What're the main carbon reservoirs? |
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Definition
Fossil fuels, soils and sediments,
solutes in oceans, plant and animal biomass, the atmosphere, and sedimentary rocks |
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Term
| What is the main Nitrogen reservoir? |
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Definition
| The atmospher- although Nitrogen must be fixed by bacteria before plants can take it up. |
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Term
| What are the main phosphorus reservoirs? |
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Definition
| The largest reservoirs are sedimentary rocks of marine origin, the oceans, and organisms (integral part of DNA) |
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Term
| What is an ecological pyramid? |
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Definition
| When graphing biomass produced at each trophic level, an ecological pyramid, which reports productivity and trophic efficiency, emerges |
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