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Bio204 Exam #1
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Ecology | The scientific study of interactions among organisms and their environment, focusing on the relationships between living organisms and their physical surroundings. |
| Biome Ecosystem | A large, distinct ecological community characterized by its climate, vegetation, and wildlife. Examples include deserts, forests, and grasslands |
| Community | A group of different species living together and interacting in a specific area, such as a forest or a coral reef. |
| Population | A group of individuals of the same species that live in a specific area and have the potential to interbreed |
| Individual | A single organism within a species. |
| Biosphere | The global sum of all ecosystems, representing the zone of life on Earth, including land, water, and the atmosphere. |
| Climate | The long-term patterns of temperature, humidity, wind, and precipitation in a particular area over a significant period of time, usually decades or centuries. |
| Microclimate | The climate of a small, specific area that may differ from the overall climate of the surrounding region. For example, the climate within a forest canopy may be different from the open field below. |
| Abiotic factors | The non-living components of an environment that affect organisms, such as temperature, water, sunlight, and soil composition. |
| Biotic factors | The living components of an environment that influence organisms, such as other organisms (predators, prey, competitors) and their interactions. |
| Vertical layering | The organization of different plant and animal species in a given area into layers based on their height or position, such as the canopy, understory, and forest floor in a forest ecosystem. |
| Disturbance | A temporary change in environmental conditions that causes a significant disruption to the ecosystem, such as fire, flooding, or human activity. Disturbances can alter the structure of a community or ecosystem. |
| Coriolis effect | the wind and ocean deflections caused by the earth’s rotation |
| Primary Productivity | his is the rate at which energy is captured by photosynthetic organisms and converted into chemical energy. |
| Convergent evolution | a process in which organisms from different evolutionary backgrounds independently evolve similar traits or features due to similar environmental pressures or ecological niches |
| Population density | The number of individuals of a species per unit of area or volume in a given habitat. It is often used to describe how crowded a population is within its environment. |
| Exponential growth | A pattern of population growth in which the number of individuals increases at a constant rate over time, without any limitations. This type of growth leads to a J-shaped curve when graphed. **happens when resources are UNlimited! |
| Logistic growth | A pattern of population growth where the growth rate decreases as the population reaches its carrying capacity. This type of growth is represented by an S-shaped curve. **occurs when resources are limited! |
| Carrying capacity (K) | The maximum population size that an environment can support sustainably over time, given the available resources such as food, water, and shelter. **when a population reaches carrying capacity, growth slows and stabilizes. |
| Density-dependent factors | Factors that influence population growth in relation to a population’s density. These factors become more intense as the population density increases, such as competition for resources, predation, disease, and parasitism. |
| Density-independent factors | Factors that affect population size regardless of the population’s density. These factors are usually abiotic and include natural disasters like floods, droughts, and temperature extremes. |
| Niche | the role and position of a species within an ecosystem, including how it gets its energy, where it lives, what it eats, and how it interacts with other species |
| Fundamental niche | the full range of environmental conditions and resources an organism can theoretically use in the absence of competition and other limiting factors. |
| Essential niche | most necessary conditions and roles an organism requires to survive and reproduce. Includes key resources and interactions with the environment and other organisms. |
| Biotic factors | living components of an ecosystem that affects other organisms, like plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc. and their interactions with things like predation and competition. |
| Abiotic factors | Nonliving components of an ecosystem that influence living organisms, such as temperature, water, sunlight, soil, air, minerals. |
| Limiting nutrients | essential nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus that are short in supply that restrict growth |
| Limiting factors | environmental factors that affect organism growth/reproduction like water availability, temperature, sunlight, population density, etc. |
| Dispersion | refers to how organisms in a population are spaced in an area |
| Clumped dispersion | organisms grouped in patches (oftentimes due to resource needs or behavior) |
| Uniform dispersion | organisms spaced out evenly (oftentimes because of territorial behavior or competition) |
| Random dispersion | organisms are dispersed unpredictably (mainly because resources are readily available across the area) |
| Interspecific interactions | Interactions between individuals of different species within a community (can be positive, negative, or neutral) |
| Predation | An interaction where one organism (the predator) kills and eats another organism (the prey). **has a significant effect on prey population size and structure. |
| Mutualism | A type of symbiotic relationship between two species in which both species benefit. Ex= bees and flowers. |
| Commensalism | A type of symbiotic relationship where one species benefits from the interaction, while the other species is neither helped nor harmed. Ex=barnacles and whales |
| Parasitism | A symbiotic relationship where one organism (the parasite) benefits at the expense of the other organism (the host) |
| Mimicry | The phenomenon where one species evolves to resemble another species, gaining some advantage (like protection from predators). |
| Batesian mimicry | harmless species mimicking harmful ones |
| Mullerian mimicry | two harmful species mimicking each other |
| Competitive exclusion principle | A principle that states two species competing for the same limited resource cannot coexist. One species will eventually outcompete the other! |
| Realized niche | The actual conditions under which a species lives and reproduces, taking into account biotic factors such as predation, competition, and disease. **often a subset of the fundamental niche |
| Keystone species | A species that has a disproportionately large impact on its ecosystem relative to its abundance or biomass. Keystone species help maintain the structure and diversity of the ecosystem. |
| Dominant species | Species that are most abundant or have the highest biomass in an ecosystem. **play a large role in shaping the structure and dynamics of their community, but not necessarily a keystone species. |
| Ecosystem engineers | Species that physically modify the environment in ways that create or alter habitats for other species. Ex= Beavers |
| Trophic structure | the arrangement of organisms in an ecosystem based on their feeding relationships (producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, etc.) **basically just how energy flows |
| Trophic cascade | a process in an ecosystem where changes at one trophic level cascade down to affect the abundance or behavior of organisms at lower trophic levels. |
| Top-down limitation | a model of ecosystem control where the abundance of species at lower trophic levels is regulated by consumers at high trophic levels. Ex= predators control the population of herbivores. |
| Bottom-up limitation | a model where the abundance of species at higher trophic levels is regulated by the availability of resources. |
| Food web | A complex network of feeding relationships within an ecosystem, illustrating how different organisms are interconnected through predator-prey and consumer-resource interactions. |
| Primary succession | the process by which an ecosystem develops on a bare or newly exposed surface. Starts with pioneer species (creates soil) then more complex communities follow. Ex= after volcanic eruption |
| Secondary succession | the process of ecosystem recovery after a disturbance that does not destroy the soil. *Progresses more rapidly than primary succession because soil is already present. |
| Habitat Heterogeneity | The variety and complexity of habitats or microhabitats within an ecosystem. Greater habitat heterogeneity can lead to higher biodiversity because it provides a greater variety of niches and resources for different species. |
| Intermediate disturbance hypothesis | The idea that biodiversity is highest in ecosystems that experience moderate levels of disturbance. Too little disturbance= dominance by a few species; too much disturbance= prevents many species from establishing. **moderate=balance! |
| Ecosystem | a community of living organisms interacting with one another and their physical environment. It includes both biotic and abiotic components that interact in complex ways to sustain life. |
| Primary production | the process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria convert solar energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. **the amount of energy captured by autotrophs that is available to other organisms in an ecosystem |
| Autotroph | an organism that produces its own food, typically through photosynthesis (sometimes chemosynthesis), using sunlight. |
| Heterotroph | an organism that cannot produce its own food and must consume other organisms to obtain energy |
| Producer | organisms that produce their own food and are the base of the food chain. **they provide energy to other organisms in the ecosystem |
| Primary consumer | these are organisms that feed directly on producers (plants) and are typically herbivores. |
| Secondary consumer | organisms that feed on primary consumers (herbivores) |
| Omnivore | organisms that eat both plants and animals |
| Biogeochemical cycles | the cycles that describe how chemical elements move through the Earth’s ecosystems. **regulate the flow of nutrients and energy through the environment |
| Decomposition | the process by which dead organic matter is broken down by decomposers into simpler substances, releasing nutrients back into the soil or water |
| food chain vs. food web | food chain= single linear sequence; food web= complex network of interconnected food chains |
| Trophic efficiency | refers to the percentage of energy transferred from one trophic level to the next in an ecosystem. **only about 10% of the energy at one trophic level is passed on to the next level (the rest is lost as heat or used for metabolism) |
| Carbon cycle | Carbon is taken up by plants during photosynthesis, consumed by animals, and returned to the atmosphere through respiration and decomposition. It is also stored in carbon sinks such as forests and oceans. |
| Nitrogen cycle | Nitrogen is converted into various chemical forms through processes like nitrogen fixation, nitrification, denitrification, and ammonification, allowing plants and animals to access this essential nutrient. |
| Phosphorus cycle | **Does not have a gaseous phase! It moves through the soil, water, and organisms, mainly through the weathering of rocks, absorption by plants, and consumption by animals. Decomposition returns phosphorus back to the soil |
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