UNIT 4

    Cards (65)

    • Niche
      The range of resources that a species uses and the abiotic conditions it can tolerate
    • Fundamental niche
      The entire set of conditions
    • Realized niche
      The set of conditions actually used
    • Realized niche
      Smaller than fundamental niche
    • Trophic levels
      • Primary producers
      • Primary consumers
      • Secondary consumers
      • Tertiary consumers
    • Dominant/foundation species
      Have large effects by virtue of their considerable abundance
    • Keystone species
      Have effects that are large in proportion to their abundance (usually a trophic interaction)
    • Biodiversity
      • Genetic diversity
      • Taxonomic diversity
    • Richness
      The number of species
    • Abiotic hypotheses for biodiversity
      • Spatial: the larger the area, the more space and potential geographic diversity
      • Energy: a larger amount of energy and nutrients in the form of biomass can support many organisms in a community
    • Biotic hypotheses for biodiversity
      • Ecological interactions: a higher complexity of species interactions leads to higher rates of niche differentiation
      • Evolutionary history: a higher species diversity is a product of relatively high speciation rates, low extinction rates, high immigration rates (colonization), and/or low emigration rates
    • Biodiversity
      • Decreases with latitude
      • Increases with area
    • Equilibrium: the higher the population, the higher the probability of extinction
    • Island size: larger islands have more colonists and a lower rate of extinction = greater biodiversity
    • Evenness
      How evenly are the species distributed
    • Species composition
      The species identity
    • Ecosystem diversity
      The range of communities and the abiotic environment
    • Bottom-up trophic control mechanisms
      • Resources
      • Nutrients
      • Water
      • Sunlight
    • Top-down trophic control mechanisms
      • Consumption
      • Predation
      • Herbivory
      • Parasites
      • Viruses/diseases
    • Trophic cascade
      Disruption of a food web by loss or reduction in abundance by one or more of its members
    • Peduzzi et al paper
      1. Objective: to find the cause of flamingo population fluctuations
      2. Hypothesis: viruses can cause a bottom-up cascade
      3. Trophic cascade: cyanophage virus, cyanobacterium, flamingo
    • Taxonomics
      The study of naming, describing, and classifying organisms
    • Systematics
      The study of the pattern of relationships among taxa - the organization of life
    • Phylogeny
      A hypothesis of how taxa are evolutionarily related to each other
    • Node
      Where branches split - common ancestor
    • Monophyletic
      Share an ancestor (clade)
    • Polyphyletic
      Shares similar traits but does not include the most recent common ancestor (not a clade)
    • Paraphyletic
      Includes an ancestor and some descendants, but not all (not a clade)
    • Parsimony
      The arrangement of taxa that requires the fewest changes and is the most likely
    • Synapomorphy
      Traits shared by two or more taxa
    • Homologous traits
      Similar origin
    • Analogous traits
      Similar function
    • Divergence
      Related species evolve different traits (environmental selection)
    • Convergence
      Unrelated but share similar traits
    • Organ paper
      1. Objective: used the gene size of current bird species to make inferences about extinct dinosaurs
      2. Conclusion: the genome size observed in modern birds likely originated from non-avian dinosaurs
    • Similarities between bacteria and archaea
      • Prokaryotes
      • No membrane around DNA
      • Single circular chromosomes
      • No energy-producing organelles
      • Very few cell compartments
      • Asexual reproduction
    • Differences between bacteria and archaea
      • Bacteria have peptidoglycan in the cell wall
      • Archaea cell membrane is unique phospholipids made from isoprene
      • Bacteria transcription is different than Eukarya and Archaea
      • Antibiotics that are effective on Bacteria don't work on Archaea
    • Value of studying bacteria and archaea
      • Lots of uncatalogued diversity (genetic/taxonomic)
      • Can live in extreme environments
      • Helps to develop medicines
      • Can be used to clean pollution
      • Metabolic diversity
    • Metabolic types of bacteria and archaea
      • Photoautotrophs: energy from sunlight, carbon from CO2
      • Chemoautotrophs: energy from environment, carbon from CO2
      • Photoheterotrophs: energy from sunlight, carbon from environment
      • Chemoheterotrophs: energy from environment, carbon from environment
    • Mechanisms to increase variation in bacteria and archaea
      • Horizontal gene transfer
      • Conjugation
      • Transduction
      • Transformation
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