AP Biology: Ecology Flashcards
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| 13257488002 | ecology | the scientific study of the interactions between organism and the environment. | 0 | |
| 13257494843 | climate | long-term prevailing weather conditions in a given area. | 1 | |
| 13257507375 | biomes | the major types of ecosystems that occupy very board geographic regions. | 2 | |
| 13257522994 | aquatic biomes | make up the largest part of the biosphere because water covers roughly 75% of Earth's surface. | 3 | |
| 13257527114 | photic zone | includes the upper layer of water in which there is enough light for photosynthesis to occur. | 4 | |
| 13257542923 | aphotic zone | is characterized by very low light penetration. | 5 | |
| 13257595323 | biotic factors | are living factors with an environment. It may include behaviors as well as interactions with other species. | 6 | |
| 13257611017 | abiotic components | are the nonliving, chemical, and physical components of an environment. | 7 | |
| 13257644676 | population | a group of individuals of a single species living in the same general area. | 8 | |
| 13257651700 | population ecology | how biotic and abiotic factors influence the density, distribution, size, and age structure of populations. | 9 | |
| 13257663680 | density | number of individuals per unit area or volume. | 10 | |
| 13257676105 | dispersion | the pattern of spacing among individuals within the boundaries of the population. | 11 | |
| 13257690360 | uniform dispersion | is often the result of antagonistic interaction. Animals that defend territories often show a this type of dispersion. | 12 | |
| 13257707094 | random dispersion | shows unpredictable spacing. This is not a common spacing in nature because there is usually a reason for a pattern of spacing. | 13 | |
| 13257753122 | type I | shows low death rates during the early and midlife; then the death rates increases sharply in older age groups. This is typical pattern for large organisms with long life spans. |  | 14 |
| 13257766596 | type II | shows a constant death rate over the organism's life span. These are often organisms that are heavily preyed upon, so individuals die before reaching old age. | 15 | |
| 13257787714 | type III | shows very high early death rates, the flat rate for the few surviving to older age groups. Many bird species how a high death rate for the first year, then a slowing for the remainder of their life span. | 16 | |
| 13257808312 | exponential population growth | refers to population growth under ideal conditions. dN = size of population dT = the time interval invovled in the calcuation r(max) = maximum per capita rate of increase for the species under study N = population size |  | 17 |
| 13257820514 | carrying capacity | the maximum population size that a certain environment can support at a particular time with no degradation of the habitat. | 18 | |
| 13257843761 | logistic growth model | the per capita rate of increase declines as carrying capacity is reached. dN = size of population dT = the time interval involved in the calculation r(max) = maximum per capita rate of increase for the species under study N = population size K = carrying capacity |  | 19 |
| 13257890472 | life history | traits that affect an organism's schedule of reproduction and survival. | 20 | |
| 13257921611 | density-dependent factors | a death rate that rises as population density rises and a birth rate that falls as population density rises. Some examples include competition for resources, disease, predation, territoriality. | 21 | |
| 13257944444 | density-independent factors | when a death rate does not change with increase in population density (i.e. natural disasters) | 22 | |
| 13257978009 | demographic transition | occurs when a population goes from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates. | 23 | |
| 13257989949 | age-structure pyramids | Shows the relative number of individuals of each age in a population and can be used to predict and explain many demographic patterns | 24 | |
| 13258009524 | community | a group of populations of different species living close enough to interact. | 25 | |
| 13258016830 | interspecific interactions | may be positive for one species (+), negative (-), or neutral (0) and include competition, predation, and symbioses. | 26 | |
| 13258054212 | interspecific competition | an interaction that occurs when individuals of different species compete for a resource that limits the survival and reproduction of each species. | 27 | |
| 13258090288 | ecological footprint | examines the total land and water area needed for all the resources a person consumes in a population. | 28 | |
| 13258107455 | ecological niche | the total sum of the biotic and abiotic resources that the species used in its environment. | 29 | |
| 13258145267 | fundamental niche | the niche potentially occupied by the species. | 30 | |
| 13258145268 | realized niche | portion of fundamental niche the species actually occupies. | 31 | |
| 13258161936 | predation | a +/- interaction between species in which one species, the predator, kills and eats the other, the prey | 32 | |
| 13258169611 | cryptic coloration | camouflage | 33 | |
| 13258171626 | aposematic | warning coloration, in which a poisonous animal is brightly colored as a warning to other animals. | 34 | |
| 13258181050 | batesian mimicry | referring to situation in which a harmless species has evolved to mimic the coloration of unpalatable or harmful species. | 35 | |
| 13258193007 | mullerian mimicry | two bad-tasting species resemble each other, ostensibly so that predators will learn to avoid them equally. | 36 | |
| 13258203308 | herbivory | (+/- interaction) refers to an interaction in which an herbivore eats parts of a plant or alga | 37 | |
| 13258209129 | symbiosis | occurs when individuals of two or more species live in direct contact with one another. | 38 | |
| 13258223665 | parasitism | (+/-) symbiotic interaction in which the parasite derives its nourishment from its hose. | 39 | |
| 13258232027 | mutualism | (+/+) an interspecific interaction that benefits both species. | 40 | |
| 13258237445 | commensalism | benefits one of the species but neither harms nor helps the other species. | 41 | |
| 13258251521 | trophic structure | refers to the feeding relationships among organisms. | 42 | |
| 13258242485 | species diversity | measures the number of the different species in a community and the relatives abundance of each species. | 43 | |
| 13258256264 | trophic levels | the links in the trophic structure of a community. | 44 | |
| 13258264282 | food chain | the pathway along which food energy is transferred from trophic level to trophic level, beginning with producers. | 45 | |
| 13258262446 | food web | consist of two or more food chains linked together. | 46 | |
| 13258279218 | dominant species | are the species that are the most abundant or that collectively have the highest biomass. | 47 | |
| 13258282511 | biomass | the total mass of organic matter comprising a group of organisms in a particular habitat. | 48 | |
| 13258289919 | keystone species | a species that is not necessarily abundant in a community yet exerts strong control on community structure by the nature of its ecological role or niche. | 49 | |
| 13277210531 | law of conservation of mass | a physical law stating that matter can change form but cannot be created or destroyed. In a closed system, the mass of the system is constant. | 50 | |
| 13277216433 | primary producer | an autotroph, usually a photosynthetic organism. Collectively, autotrophs make up the trophic level of an ecosystem that ultimately supports all other levels. | 51 | |
| 13277221928 | primary consumer | a herbivore; an organism that eats plants or other autotrophs. | 52 | |
| 13277225435 | secondary consumer (carnivores) | a carnivore that eats herbivores. | 53 | |
| 13277230548 | tertiary consumer (carnivores) | a carnivore that eats other carnivores. | 54 | |
| 13277235954 | decomposer | an organism that absorbs nutrients from nonliving organic material such as corpses, fallen plant material, and the wastes of living organisms and converts them to inorganic forms; a detritivore. | 55 | |
| 13277239426 | detritus | dead organic matter | 56 | |
| 13277455389 | primary production | the amount of light energy converted to chemical energy (organic compounds) by the autotrophs in an ecosystem during a given time period. | 57 | |
| 13277460353 | gross primary production | the total primary production of an ecosystem | 58 | |
| 13277463109 | net primary production | the gross primary production of an ecosystem minus the energy used by the producers for respiration. | 59 | |
| 13277466481 | net ecosystem production | the gross primary production of an ecosystem minus the energy used by all autotrophs and heterotrophs for respiration. | 60 | |
| 13277470825 | eutophication | a process by which nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen, become highly concentrated in a body of water, leading to increased growth of organisms such as algae or cyanobacteria. | 61 | |
| 13277586257 | secondary production | the amount of chemical energy in consumers' food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period. | 62 | |
| 13277588857 | production efficiency | the percentage of energy stored in assimilated food that is not used for respiration or eliminated as waste. | 63 | |
| 13277595726 | tropic efficiency | the percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next. | 64 | |
| 13379042346 | nitrogen fixation | the conversion of N2 by bacteria to forms that can be used by plants | 65 | |
| 13379052506 | nitrification | the process by which ammonium NH4 is oxidized to nitrate and then nitrate by bacteria. | 66 | |
| 13379061115 | denitrification | a process by which bacteria releases nitrogen to the atmosphere. | 67 | |
| 13408979992 | climograph | a plot of the temperature and precipitation in a particular region. | 68 | |
| 13408997375 | disturbance | a natural or human-caused event that changes a biological community and usually removes organisms from it. Events, such as fires and storms, play a pivotal role in structuring many communities. | 69 | |
| 13409014992 | disperal | the movement of individuals or gametes away from their parent location. This movement sometimes expands the geographic range of a population or species. | 70 | |
| 13409028671 | immigration | the influx of new individuals into a population from other areas. | 71 | |
| 13409032542 | emigration | the movement of individuals out of a population. | 72 | |
| 13409038626 | territoriality | a behavior in which an animal defends a bounded physical space against encroachment by other individuals, usually of its own species. | 73 | |
| 13409048046 | demography | the study of changes over time in the vital statistics of populations, especially birth rates and death rates. | 74 | |
| 13409053388 | life table | a summary of the age-specific survival and reproductive rates of individuals in a population. | 75 | |
| 13409059936 | cohort | a group of individuals of the same age in a population. | 76 | |
| 13409084730 | competitive exclusion | the concept that when populations of two similar species compete for the same limited resources, one population will use the resources more efficiently and have a reproductive advantage that will eventually lead to the elimination of the other population. | 77 | |
| 13409115597 | species richness | the number of species in a biological community. | 78 | |
| 13409119609 | relative abundance/species evenness | the proportional abundance of different species in a community. | 79 | |
| 13409130754 | invasive species | a species, often introduced by humans, that takes hold outside its native range. | 80 | |
| 13419210824 | resource partitioning | The division of environmental resources by coexisting species such that the niche of each species differs by one or more significant factors from the niches of all coexisting species | 81 | |
| 13419220946 | character displacement | a phenomenon where differences among similar species whose distributions overlap geographically are accentuated in regions where the species co-occur but are minimized or lost where the species' distributions do not overlap. |  | 82 |
| 13419340752 | spatial resource partitioning | species reduce competition by utilizing same resource in different habitats. | 83 | |
| 13419349066 | temporal resource partitioning | species reduce competition by utilizing same resource at different times. | 84 | |
| 13419384381 | allopatric | geographically separate | 85 | |
| 13419387460 | sympatric | geographically overlapping | 86 | |
| 13456482641 | ecological succession | sequence of community and ecosystem changes after a disturbance. | 87 | |
| 13456486203 | primary succession | occurs where no soil exists when succession begins. | 88 | |
| 13456490499 | secondary succession | begins in an area where soil remains after a disturbance. | 89 | |
| 13471888616 | r-selected species/strategist (type III) | a species that has a high intrinsic growth rate, which often leads to population overshoots and die-offs |  | 90 |
| 13471890152 | k-selected species/strategist (type I) | a species with a low intrinsic growth rate that causes the population to increase slowly until it reaches carrying capacity |  | 91 |
| 13471894058 | ecosystem engineers | a keystone species that creates or maintains habitat for other species | 92 | |
| 13532108297 | carbohydrates | carbon: carbon chain hydrogen: attached to carbon skeleton oxygen: attached to carbon skeleton |  | 93 |
| 13532148542 | proteins | carbon: center of the molecule hydrogen: carboxyl and amino group oxygen: carboxyl group nitrogen: amino group sulfur: disulfur bonds (tertiary structure) |  | 94 |
| 13532171657 | lipids | carbon: carbon chain hydrogen: attached to the carbon chain oxygen: carboxyl group |  | 95 |
| 13532184176 | nucleuic acids | carbon: sugar molecule oxygen: sugar molecule hydrogen: sugar molecule nitrogen: nitrogen bases phosphorus: phosphate backbone |  | 96 |
| 13532355282 | water cycle | the continuous process by which water moves from Earth's surface to the atmosphere and back |  | 97 |
| 13532358803 | carbon cycle | The organic circulation of carbon from the atmosphere into organisms and back again |  | 98 |
| 13532556336 | phosphorus cycle | the movement of phosphorus atoms from rocks through the biosphere and hydrosphere and back to rocks. |  | 99 |
| 13532673228 | nitrogen cycle | the transfer of nitrogen from the atmosphere to the soil, to living organisms, and back to the atmosphere |  | 100 |