front 1 What is Ecology? | back 1 Ecology is the scientific study of the abundance and distribution of organisms in relation to other organisms and environmental conditions. |
front 2 Ecological systems vary in size; each ecological system is a subset of the next larger one. These stacking systems form a _____________. | back 2 Hierarchy. Think Russian nesting dolls. |
front 3 What is the fundamental unit of ecology? Why is it not a smaller biological unit? | back 3 An individual. |
front 4 What is a population? | back 4 Individuals of the same species living in a particular area. |
front 5 Give an example of a hypothetical natural natural boundary that separates populations. | back 5 ex. mountain, river, elevation difference, where a continent meets an ocean... |
front 6 What is the geographic range (aka distribution) of a population? | back 6 the extent of land or water within which a population lives |
front 7 What does the composition of a population refer to? | back 7 It describes the makeup of a population in terms of gender, age, or genetics |
front 8 What is an ecological community? | back 8 All populations of all species living together in a particular area. |
front 9 Why must scientists decide on boundaries for communities they want to study? | back 9 Because community boundaries are not always rigid. (This can manifest as communities tapering into each other between elevations for example, as opposed to a forest stopping abruptly for a beach.) |
front 10 What is an ecosystem? | back 10 One or more communities of living organisms interacting with their nonliving physical and chemical environments, which include water, air, temperature, sunlight, and nutrients. |
front 11 Where does most of the energy in an ecosystem come from? Where does it go? | back 11 The energy originates as sunlight and escapes earth as radiated heat. |
front 12 What is the textbook's example of energy flowing into an ecosystem that DOES NOT originate as sunlight? | back 12 Energy from hydrothermal vents. |
front 13 In contrast to the movement of energy, the movement of matter largely _________ within an ecosystem. | back 13 cycles |
front 14 How do scientists generally distinguish ecosystems? | back 14 By their flows of energy and materials |
front 15 What is the biosphere? | back 15 All the ecosystems on earth |
front 16 What are the 5 levels of hierarchy of ecological systems in order of smallest to largest? | back 16 The individual, the population, the community, the ecosystem, and the environment |
front 17 What are adaptations? | back 17 the characteristics of an organism that make it well-suited to its environment. |
front 18 What is a phenotype? | back 18 An attribute of an organism, such as its behaviour, morphology, or physiology |
front 19 What is a genotype? | back 19 The set of genes an organism carries |
front 20 How are phenotypes determined? | back 20 A phenotype is determined by the interaction of the organism’s genotype with the environment it lives in. |
front 21 What is evolution? | back 21 Change in the genetic composition of a population over time. |
front 22 What is natural selection? | back 22 a change in the frequency of genes in a population as consequence of certain individuals reproducing with greater success than others due to their phenotypes |
front 23 What are the 3 conditions natural selection depends on? | back 23 1. Individual organisms vary in their traits. 2. Parental traits are inherited by their offspring. 3. The variation in traits causes some individuals to experience higher fitness, which we define as the survival and reproduction of an individual. |
front 24 What is fitness? | back 24 The survival and reproduction of an individual |
front 25 What are parasites? | back 25 Organisms that live in or on another organism, called the host. |
front 26 What are herbivores? | back 26 Organisms that consume producers, such as plants and algae |
front 27 What is competition? | back 27 An interaction with negative effects between two species that depend on the same limiting resource to survive, grow, and reproduce |
front 28 What is mutualism? | back 28 When two species interact in a way that each species receives benefits from the other (lichens) |
front 29 What is a symbiotic relationship? What kind of organisms do these include? | back 29 When two different types of organisms live in a close physical relationship. Includes parasites, parasitoids, mutualists, and commensal organisms. |
front 30 Are symbiotic relationships positive, negative or neutral to all parties within? | back 30 A mix of all three. |
front 31 What is a habitat? | back 31 The place or physical setting in which an organism lives |
front 32 What is a niche? | back 32 The range of abiotic and biotic conditions an organism can tolerate |
front 33 What is the difference between a habitat and a niche? Give an example. | back 33 Habitats cover a broad area and within them are found several niches. A boreal forest is a habitat for example, but the conditions in the trees, soil and water would all make different potential niches. A species (like an earthworm) that can tolerate the conditions of its niche (soil) may not be able to tolerate the conditions of other niches (the canopy, the air) in its habitat. |
front 34 No two species have exactly the same niche, true or false? Why? | back 34 True, each has distinctive attributes of form and function that determine the conditions it can tolerate, how it feeds, and how it escapes enemies. |
front 35 What are the three steps we can break the scientific method into? | back 35
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front 36 How does a manipulative experiment test a hypothesis? | back 36 By altering a factor that is hypothesized to be an underlying cause of a phenomenon. |
front 37 The _________________, also known as the ______________, is the factor that we want to vary in an experiment. | back 37 manipulation, treatment |
front 38 A ____________ is a manipulation that includes all aspects of an experiment except the factor of interest. | back 38 control |
front 39 Being able to produce a similar outcome multiple times is known as...? | back 39 replication |
front 40 What is Randomization? | back 40 An aspect of experiment design in which every experimental unit has an equal chance of being assigned to a particular manipulation. That particular manipulation could mean a set of conditions, interference, interactions or something else. |
front 41 What are microcosms? | back 41 Simplified ecological systems that attempt to replicate the essential features of an ecological system in a laboratory or field setting. |
front 42 What are natural experiments? | back 42 Experiments that rely on natural variation in the environment to test a hypothesis |