zoo

• Ecology


  The study of the relationships of organisms to their environment and to other organisms
• Studying Ecology


  • Why animals live in certain places
  • Why they eat certain foods
  • Why they interact with other animals
  • How human activities can harm animal populations
  • What we must do to preserve animal resources
• Habitat


  The type of natural environment in which a particular species of organism lives, including all biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) characteristics of the area
• Abiotic


  Non-living factors that impact an ecosystem, such as wind, sunlight, soil, temperature, atmosphere, water
• Energy Budget


  An account of an animal's total energy intake and a description of how that energy is used and lost
• Energy Budget Components


  • Gross Energy Intake - total energy contained in the food an animal eats
  • Existence Energy - pumping of blood, gas exchange, muscle contraction, and repair process
  • Excretory Energy - feces and excretion
  • Productive Energy - growth, mating, and care of the young
• Temperature


  Affects the rates of chemical reactions in animal cells (metabolic rate) and the animal's overall activity
• Thermoregulation


  The ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, interchangeable with homeostasis
• Forms of Thermoregulation


  • Radiation
  • Conduction
  • Convection
  • Evaporation
• Torpor


  A time of decreased metabolism and lowered body temperature that may occur daily in some small birds and mammals
• Hibernation


  A time of decreased metabolism and lowered body temperature that may last for weeks or months, allowing animals to survive food shortage over the winter
• Aestivation


  A period of inactivity in some animals that must withstand extended periods of drying, usually during unfavorable summer months
• Biotic


  Any living component that affects another organism or shapes the ecosystem, such as plants, animals, bacteria, humans
• Vocabulary


  • Tolerance Range - condition in which an organism can live within a certain range of values for any environmental factors
  • Range of Optimum - defines as the conditions under which an animal is most successful (ideal range for an organism)
  • Limiting Factor - a resource or environmental condition which limits the growth, distribution, or abundance of an organism or population within an ecosystem
• Population


  Groups of individuals of the same species that occupy a given area at the same time and have unique attributes
• Types of Population Growth

  • Exponential growth - theoretical populations that increase in numbers without any limits
  • Logistic growth - introduces limits to reproductive growth that become more intense as the population size increases
• Survivorship Curves


  Describe how organisms survive, with Type I having many young that die when old, Type II having a linear death rate, and Type III having high juvenile mortality

  
• Environment Resistance


  The constraints that climate, food, space, and other environmental factors place on a population
• Carrying Capacity


  The amount of organisms within a region that the environment can support
• Types of Population Regulation

  • Density-independent Regulation - influence the number of animals without regard to population density
  • Density-dependent Regulation - more severe when population density is high
• Predation


  When one organism (predator) consumes part or all of another organism (prey)
• Herbivory


  When an organism (herbivore) feeds on producers (plants)
• Interspecific Competition


  When members of different species compete for resources, leading to one species moving or becoming extinct, or the two species sharing resources and coexisting
• Intraspecific Competition


  Competition among members of the same species, often intense because their resource requirements are nearly identical
• Coevolution


  Two or more species evolve in response to changes in each other, with both species receiving benefits from the other as a result of adaptation
• Types of Symbiosis


  • Parasitism - one organism (parasite) benefits while harming the other (host)
  • Commensalism - one organism benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed
  • Mutualism - both organisms benefit
  • Predation - one organism (predator) kills and eats another (prey)
• Crypsis


  The ability of an animal to avoid observation or detection by other animals, as a predation strategy or antipredator adaptation
• Mimicry


  When a species resembles one or more other species and gains protection by the resemblance
• Aposematic Coloration


  A form of coloration which discourages a predator from eating an organism, often associated with a sting, poison, or painful bite
• Community


  All populations living in an area, including keystone species that are critical to the ecosystem
• Species Richness


  The number of different species represented in an ecological community, landscape, or region
• Ecological Niche


  The role and position a species has in its environment, how it meets its needs for food, shelter, survival, and reproduction
• Community Stability


  The ability of a community to resist change or rebound from change, measured by the degree of fluctuations in population sizes
• Stages of Succession


  • Seral Stage - stages at which species are replaced through competition
  • Pioneer Community - the first inhabitants of a new community
  • Primary Succession - process that occurs where no ecosystem existed
  • Secondary Succession - development of communities over time in an area with disturbance but existing soil
  • Climax Community - the final stage of succession where the ecosystem has stopped changing
• Trophic Structure of Ecosystem

  The self-sustaining structural and functional interaction between living and non-living components, including primary production - the total amount of energy converted into living tissues
• Biomass


  The total mass of all organisms in an ecosystem
• Food Chain


  The sequence of organisms through which energy moves in an ecosystem
• Trophic Levels


  • Producers - organisms that obtain nutrition from inorganic material through photosynthesis or other carbon-fixing activities
  • Consumers - organisms that obtain nutrients from other organisms
• Self-sustaining


  Able to maintain itself without external support
• Ecosystem


  • Structural and functional interaction between living and nonliving components