Ecology Test 1

• ecology is the scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their environment
• Ecological systems are biological entities that have their own internal processes and interact with their external surroundings
• an individual is a living being and is the most fundamental unit of life
• an individual organism interacts with its environment through: heat balance, water balance, nutrients absorbed and wasted excreted
• individual approach emphasized the way in which an individual's morphology, physiology, and behavior enable it to survive in its enviornment
• population- individuals of the same species living in a particular area
• population approach- emphasizes variation over time and space in the number, the density, and the composition of individuals
• distribution is the extent of land or water within which a population lives
• abundance is the total number of individuals
• density is the number of individuals per unit area
• composition is age, range, genetics, et.
• community is all populations of species living together in a particular area
• community approach emphasizes the diversity and relative abundance of different kinds of organisms living together in the same place
• ecosystem are one or more communities of living organisms interacting with their nonliving physical and chemical environments
• ecosystem approach emphasizes the storage and transfer of energy and matter, including the various chemical elements essential to life
• landscapes ares multiple ecosystems that are connected by the movement of individuals, population, matter, and energy
• landscape approach in ecology is concerned with the movement of energy, matter, and individuals between different ecosystems
• the biosphere is all the ecosystems on earth
• biosphere approach is concerned with the largest scale, including movements of air and water-and the energy and chemical elements they contain-over Earth's surface
• dynamic steady state is defined as gains and losses of ecological systems that are in balance
• evolution is the processes that explains diversity
• a detritivore is an organism that feeds on dead organic matter and waste products that are collectively know as detritus
• parasitoids are an organism that lives within and consumes the tissues of a living host, eventually killing it
• parasites are organisms that live and feed in or on another organism, while rarely killing their hosts
• the four types of relationships are competition, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism
• the two types of competition are interspecific and intraspecific competition
• commensalism is an interaction in which two species live in close association and one species receives a benefit, while the other experiences neither a benefit nor a cost
• a habitat is the place, or physical setting, in which an organism lives
• a niche is the range of abiotic and biotic conditions that an organism can tolerate
• a proximate hypothesis is a hypothesis that addresses the immediate changes in an organism's hormones, physiology, nervous system, or muscular system
• an ultimate hypothesis addresses the fitness costs and benefits of a response
• a microcosm is a simplified ecological system that attempts to replicate the essential features of an ecological system in a laboratory or field setting
• a natural experiment is an approach to hypothesis testing that relies on natural variation in the environment
• a mathematical model is a representation of a system with a set of equations that correspond to hypothesized relationships among the system's components
• climate is the typical atmospheric conditions that occur throughout the year, measure over many years
• in the greenhouse effect, the earth is warmed by the Sun, but it is even warmer
• the greenhouse effect is the process of solar radiation striking Earth, being converted to infrared radiation, and being absorbed and re-emitted by atmospheric gases
• the albedo effect is the fraction of solar energy that is reflected by an object
• seasonal variation in climate results from tilt in the Earth's axis
• the unequal heating of earth drives air currents in the atmosphere