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AP Bio Ecology
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ecology | The study of interactions between organisms and their environments |
| Abiotic components | Nonliving chemical and physical factors |
| Biotic components | The organisms that are part of any individual's environment |
| Ecological time | Minutes, months, years |
| Evolutionary Time | Decades, centuries, millenia, etc. |
| Organismal Ecology | Concerned with the morphological, physiological, and behavioral ways in which an organism meets the challenges posed by their biotic and abiotic environments |
| Population | A group of individuals of the same species living in a particular area |
| Population Ecology | Concentrates mainly on how many individuals of a particular species live in an area. |
| Community | Consists of all the organisms of all the species that inhabit a particular area |
| Community ecology | Deals with the whole array of interacting species in a community |
| Ecosystem | Consists of all the abiotic factors in addition to the entire community of species that exist in a certain area. |
| Ecosystem ecology | The emphasis is on energy flow and the cycling of chemicals among the various biotic and abiotic components |
| Biosphere | The global ecosystem |
| Precautionary Priciple | "Look before you leap" |
| Biogeography | The study of the past and present distribution of individual species |
| Climate | The prevailing weather conditions in an area |
| Biome | The major types of ecosystems |
| Microclimate | Weather patterns on a very small scale. |
| Photic zone | The area where there is sufficient light for photosynthesis |
| Thermocline | Separates a more uniformly warm upper layer from more uniformly cold deeper waters |
| Detritus | Dead organic matter |
| Littoral Zone | The shallow, well-lit waters close to shore. |
| Oligotrophic | Deep and nutrient-poor |
| Eutrophic | Shallow and nutrient-rich |
| Mesotrophic | Lakes with a moderate amount of nutrients and phytoplankton productivity. |
| Estuary | The area where freshwater stream or river merges with the ocean |
| Intertidal zone | The zone where land meets water |
| Neritic Zone | The shallow regions over the continental shelves. |
| Pelagic Zone | Open water at any depth |
| Benthic zone | The seafloor |
| Behavior | What an animal does and how it does it |
| Ethology | Study of how animals behave in their natural habitats |
| Fixed action pattern | A sequence of behavioral acts that is essentially unchangeable and usually carried to completion once initiated |
| Behavioral ecology | The research field that views behavior as an evolutionary adaptation to the natural ecological conditions of animals |
| Foraging | Obtaining food |
| Optimal foraging theory | Views foraging behavior as a compromise between feeding costs and feeding benefits |
| Learning | Modification of behavior resulting from specific experiences |
| Maturation | Ongoing development in neuromuscular systems |
| Habituation | A very simple type of learning that involves a loss of a responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information |
| Imprinting | Larinign that is limited to a specific period in an animal's life. |
| Associative conditioning | The ability of many animals to learn to associate one stimulus with another |
| Classical conditioning | Involves learning to associate an arbitrary stimulus with a reward or punishment |
| Operant conditioning | Trial-and-error learning |
| Cognition | Utility of an animals in the system to receive, store, process, and use information gathered by sensory receptors |
| Kinesis | A simple change in activity or turning rate in response to a stimulus |
| Cognitive map | An internal presentation of the spatial relationships among objects in an animal's surroundings |
| Migration | Regular movement over relatively long distances |
| Social behavior | Any kind of interaction between two or more animals |
| Sociobiology | It is evolutionary theory to the study and interpretation of social behavior |
| Dominance hierarchy | Pecking order |
| Courtship | Consists of behavior patterns that lead up to copulation |
| Signal | A behavior that causes a change in behavior in another animal |
| Pheromones | Chemical signals |
| Altruism | An animal behaving in ways that reduce individual fitness and increase the fitness of the recipient of the behavior |
| Population density | The number of individuals per unit of area or volume. |
| Dispersion | The pattern of spacing among individuals within the geographic boundaries of the population |
| Clumped | Where individuals Aggregate in patches |
| Uniform | Evenly spaced |
| Random spacing | Unpredictable dispersion |
| Demography | The study of the vital statistics that affect population size |
| Cohort | A group of individuals of the same age |
| Big-Bang reproduction | Quick reproduction in massive amounts |
| Repeated reproduction | Slow reproduction that often happens annually. |
| Zero population growth | Occurs when the per capita birth rates and death rates are equal |
| Exponential population growth | Geometric population growth |
| Carrying capacity | The maximum Population size of a particular environment can support at a particular time with no degradation of the habitat |
| r-Selection | Density Independent Selection |
| K-Selection | Density dependent selection |
| Demographic transition | A movement between population states |
| Age structure | The relative number of individuals of each age |
| Ecological footprint | A calculation of the aggregate land and water area in various ecosystem categories that is appropriated by a nation to reduce all the resources it consumes and to absorbed all the waste it generates |
| Autotrophs | Producers that fix carbon and produce O2. |
| Heterotrophs | Consumers that depend on producers directly and indirectly. |
| Primary Consumers | Herbivores - Subsist directly on producers. |
| Secondary consumers | Carnivores that eat herbivores. |
| Detritivores | Organisms that survive solely on detritus and are necessary to nutrient cycles; decomposers. |
| Detritus | Nonliving organic material. |
| Primary Production | The amount of light energy converted to chemical energy in a given time period. |
| Biomass | The total dry mass of an organism. |
| Standing crop | The total biomass of photosynthetic autotrophs present at a given time. |
| Limiting nutrient | The nutrient that must be added for an organism to increase production. |
| Secondary Production | The amount of chemical energy in a consumer's food that is converted to their own biomass. |
| Production efficiency | The fraction of food energy that is not used for respiration. |
| Turnover Time | The amount of time it takes for a producer to replace its own biomass. |
| Green world hypothesis | States that herbivores are held in check by a variety of factors. |
| Biogeochemical cycles | The cycling of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous. |
| Eutrophication | An increase in the number of photosynthetic material at a lakes surface. |
| Biological Magnification | The increase in concentration of toxins at successive trophic levels. |
| Greenhouse Effect | The rebounding effect that greenhouse gases have on infrared radiation. |
| Endangered Species | A species that is in danger of becoming extinct. |
| Introduced species | A nonnative species moved intentionally or unintentionally to a foreign area. |
| Small Population Approach | Studies the processes that cause small populations to become extinct. |
| Extinction Vortex | A downward spirtal unique to small populations. |
| Minimum Viable Population Size | The minimum number of individuals a species needs to survive. |
| Landscape | A regional assemblage of interacting ecosystems |
| Movement corridor | A narrow strait or series of small clumps of quality habitat connecting otherwise isolated areas. |
| Biodiversity Hot Spot | A relatively small area with a large number of endemic species. |
| Zoned Reserve | An extensive region of land that includes one or more areas undisturbed by humans surrounded by areas that have been disturbed. |
| Restoration Ecology | The attempt to return a damaged or nonfunctioning ecosystem to a functioning state. |
| Bioremediation | The use of organisms such as bacteria to improve an ecosystem. |
| Sustainable biosphere initiative | The idea of using the planet in a way that can continue indefinitely. |
Created by:
Stratten Waldt
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