Ecology
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119 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Ethology | the Study of animal behavior |
| Behavioral Ecology | examines the ways in which behavior is adaptive, how behavior varies, how it evolves |
| Proximate Questions | why/how (in ecological time); what are the environmental stimuli? What are the mechanisms for the resulting behavior (genetic, physiological, anatomical)? |
| Ultimate Questions | why (evolutionary time) evolutionary significance of behavior; what are the selective pressures that favored this behavior over alternative possibilities? (assumption: behavior increases fitness) |
| Fixed Action Pattern | sequence of unlearned (innate; genetically programmed) behavioral acts; carried to completion once initiated by a sign stimulus (external sensory trigger) |
| Super-normal Stimulus | bigger, better version of sign stimulus elicits even stronger response than the real thing |
| Imprinting | specific learned behavior with a significant innate component, acquired during a limited sensitive period (critical developmental stage) |
| Innate Behavior | under strong genetic influence (not learned) |
| Kinesis | change in activity or turning rate in response to stimulus |
| Taxis | Automatic oriented movement toward or away from a stimulus |
| Signal | behavior in an animal that causes a a change in the behavior of another |
| Communication | transmission, reception, and response to signals - visual, auditory, chemical, tactile & electrical cues |
| Pheromone | a secreted or excreted chemical signal for communication; acts much like a hormone to influence physiology / behavior |
| Territory | area, usually fixed in location, that individuals defend against other members of the same species |
| Total Range | Covered by individual or group in its lifetime |
| Home Range | used by individual or group on a regular basis |
| Agonistic Behavior | includes a variety of threats or actual combat that settles disputes between individuals in a population (over resources; mates) |
| Dominance Hierarchy | Ranking of individuals based on social interactions |
| Foraging | Behavior associated with recognizing, searching for, capturing, consuming food |
| Optimal Foraging Theory | foraging behavior as a compromise between benefits of nutrition & costs of obtaining food (trade off) |
| Promiscuous | No strong pair bonds or lasting relationships |
| Monogamous | one male mating with one female |
| Polygamous | individual of one sex mating with several of the other (e.g., harem); polygyny vs. polyandry |
| Altruism | Reduce own fitness to increase that of another |
| Kin Selection | altruistic behavior toward close relatives increases inclusive fitness because kin share genes |
| Eusocial Societies | extremely altruistic colonies (bees, ants, termites, naked mole rats) |
| Inclusive fitness | total effect individual has on proliferating its own genes (own offspring plus helping other close relatives) |
| Coefficient of relatedness | Probability that if two individuals share a parent or ancestor, a particular gene will also be shared |
| Learning | modification of behavior based on specific experiences |
| Habituation | Loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey very little information "cry wolf" effect |
| Spatial Learning | Modification of behavior based on experience with spatial structure of surrounding environment |
| Associative Learning | ability to associate one feature of the environment with another |
| Social Learning | Learning through observing others |
| Culture | system of information transfer through social learning that influences behavior within the population |
| Sociobiology | study of evolutionary influence on social organization (including human interactions) |
| Insight | Ability to solve a new problem with an original solution |
| Range Expansion | may be natural or influenced by human causes (not the same as "species transplant" or "biological invasion") |
| Biosphere | Global ecosystem; entire portion of Earth inhabited by life; sum of all the planets ecosystems |
| Biome | one of the world's major ecosystems, classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptions of organisms to that particular environment |
| Ecotone | region of integradation between biomes |
| Temperate Zones | region between latitude 23.5ºN (Cancer) & 66.3ºN (Arctic Circle); between 23.5ºS (Capricorn) & 66.33ºS (Antarctic Circle) |
| Tropics | region between latitude 23.5º N (Cancer) & 23.5 º S (Capricorn) |
| Prevailing Winds | caused by rising (warm) & falling (cool) air masses |
| Ocean Currents | determined by: prevailing winds + rotation + unequal heating of water + location, shapes of continents |
| Aquatic Biomes: | intertidal zone - shoreline habitat pelagic zone - open water habitat benthic zone - sea floor photic zone - sunlight penetrates surface, allowing photosynthesis only rarely includes benthic zone (continental shelf; coral reef) aphotic zone - no photosynthesis |
| Estuary | where freshwater river mouth meets ocean |
| Oligotrophic | Low nutrient levels; clear water |
| Eutrophic | High nutrient levels; productive system |
| Eutrophication | agricultural fertilizers can make systems too productive |
| Tropical Rain Forest | - rainfall 200-400 cm/yr - thorny shrubs, deciduous trees - complexity & biodiversity - vertical stratification - poor soils (rapid nutrient cycling) |
| Savannas | - rainfall 30-50 cm/yr - grasses, scattered trees - fires prevent forestation - relatively simple in structure - seasonal migration of grazers |
| Deserts | - rainfall < 30 cm/yr - descending dry air pattern - temperature fluctuations - cycles of growth (with rainfall) - deep-rooted shrubs, cacti, succulent plants |
| Chapparal | - mild, rainy winter; hot dry summer - moderated by ocean currents - periodic fires - perennial shrubs, w/ annual plants |
| Temperate Grasslands | - treeless except along rivers - cold winters - periodic drought, fires - shortgrass or tallgrass prairies - often converted to agricultural use |
| Temperate Forest | - enough moisture for large trees - deciduous trees (lose leaves) - seasonal variation in temperature - leaf litter (slow nutrient cycling) |
| Coniferous forest | - expansive northern "taiga" - long, cold winters; wet summers - nutrient poor, acidic soil - snow insulates soil - low diversity of tree species |
| Tundra | - northern limit of plant growth - low rainfall / saturated soil - dwarf shrubs, grasses, mosses - permafrost (frozen soil layer) |
| Population Ecology | populations in relation to the environment; What influences population density & distribution, age structure, variations in population size? |
| Patterns of Dispersion | Clumped, Uniform, Random (rare) |
| Demography | Vital statistics of populations changing over time |
| Suvivorship Curve | plot of proportion in cohort still alive at each age |
| Exponential Growth | Geometric increase in unlimited conditions |
| zero population growth | births = deaths |
| Carrying capacity | Max Pop that an environment can support |
| Logistic population growth | per capita rate of increase declines as carrying capacity is approached |
| Trade offs | when time, energy, nutrients are used for one thing they cannot be used for another |
| K selection | density-dependent selection; for certain populations, life history is centered around producing relatively few offspring that have a good chance of survival |
| R selection | density-independent selection; for certain populations, a high reproductive rate is key to fitness |
| Density Dependant (Birth or Death rate) | reproductive output changes with population density |
| Sustainable Resource Management | harvesting without damaging the resource |
| Maximum Sustained Yield | harvesting at a level that produces a constant yield without forcing a population into decline |
| Integrated Pest Management | Use of ecological knowledge and principles to control unwanted species |
| Metapopulation | group of populations linked by measurable immigration, emigration |
| sink populations | Unsustainable, lead towards extinction |
| source populations | replenish sink populations |
| Population cycle | (rare event) regular fluctuations "boom and bust" |
| Ecological footprint | Aggregate land and watyer used for a nation, state, city, individual, etc. |
| Ecological Capacity | actual resource base of each nation |
| Interspecific Competition | when different species compete for a resource (sunlight, water, food, space) |
| Competitive exclusion principle | Two species cannot she ecological niche; one will drive the other to local extinction |
| Resource Partitioning | differentiation of niches; allows similar species to coexist |
| Character displacement | tendency for phenotypic characteristics to be more divergent (between species) in sympatric populations than allopatric populations |
| species diversity | variety of different kinds of organisms (species) that make up a community |
| species richness | total number of different species in the community |
| relative abundance | proportion each species represents of the total number of individuals |
| food web | the elaborate, interconnected feeding relationships in an ecosystem (accounts for more complexity than food web) |
| dominant species | most abundant species and/or highest collective biomass |
| biomass | dry weight of organic matter comprising a group of organisms in a particular habitat |
| keystone species | has a strong influence on community structure; helps prevent ecosystem collapse -blue mussles would take over if they weren't prey of the ochre sea star |
| ecosystem engineer | (foundation species) exert influence by causing physical changes in environment -beaver turns forest into wetland habitat with dams; humans and termites also move things around |
| disturbance | event that changes community by removing organisms and altering resource availability |
| intermediate disturbance hypothesis | moderate levels of disturbance foster greater species diversity than either low or high levels |
| ecological succession | transition in species composition, often following disturbance |
| primary succession | follows a disturbance that wipes out virtually all life (along with the soil from which it grew) |
| secondary succession | occurs when an existing community has been cleared by a disturbance that leaves the soil intact |
| species-area curve | species diversity is greater in larger areas (with similiar climate, etc.) |
| island biogeography theory | conservation applications because patches of intact habitat function like islands -larger islands end up with more species than smaller islands -islands closer to the mainland end up with more species than farther islands |
| bottom-up effects | strong influence on community structure from the bottom-up; e.g. mineral nutrient availability |
| top-down controls | strong influence on community structure from the top-down; e.g. predation |
| trophic structure | the different feeding relationships in an ecosystem, which determine the route of energy flow and the pattern of chemical cycling |
| food chain | transfer of food energy up trophic levels from autotrophs through heterotrophs |
| law of thermodynamics | 1. in any conversion, energy is neither created nor destroyed 2. when energy is converted from one form to another, some of that energy becomes unavailable to do work 3. disorder tends to increase (entropy) because no physical or chemical reaction is 100% efficient |
| abiotic reservoir | chemical accumulates or is stockpiled outside of living organisms |
| chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) | banned by many nations due to damage to the ozone shield |
| conservation biology | applied use of ecology, behavior, physiology, molecular biology, genetics, evolutionary biology to conserve biological diversity |
| endangered species | in danger of extinction throughout most of its range |
| threatened species | likely to become endangered in the near future |
| biological diversity | measyred as genetic diversity, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity |
| HIPPO | Habitat destruction Invasive species Pollution Population Growth Overharvesting |
| biological magnification (bioaccumulation) | certain toxins become more concentrated at higher levels in the food chain |
| DDTs | chemical that almost killed off the bald eagles |
| PCBs | chemical in Puget Sound where killer whales population decreases |
| umbrella species | preserving enough land to save a grizzly bear will also save the organisms beneath it in a food web |
| flagship species | polar bear, panda, etc. used as symbols to motivate public concern for ecosystem health |
| biodiversity hot spot | relatively small area with exceptional number of endemic, endangered, and threatened species |
| sustainable development | long-term planning to balance human quality of life & economic concern with sustainable resource use and biological conservation |
| zoned reserve | extensive region of land with different levels of protection/land use practices |
| movement corridor | connection of habitat islands for dispersal and migration of organisms (emigration and immigration) |
| restoration ecology | applied use of ecology to return degraded ecosystem to functioning conditions (reforestation; remove dams, canals; coastal rehabilitation) |
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