Environmental Science Principles Quiz

Environment

• Surrounds an organism and includes the social and cultural conditions that may affect them
• Includes both biotic and abiotic factors
  • Biotic - Living factors
  • Abiotic - Non-living factors
• Everything affecting an organism throughout its lifetime

Environmental Science

• Systematized body of knowledge on a subject
• Chronologically arranged, rationalized in order
• Systematic study of our environment and our place in it
• Explains how species interact with one another
• An interdisciplinary field relating one branch of knowledge to another.
• Includes both scientific and social aspects of human impact on the world

7 Environmental Principles

• Nature Knows Best - Humans need to appreciate and recognize the importance of nature and follow its rules
• All forms of life are important - Each organism plays a vital role in nature
• Everything is connected to everything else. - Food Chain
• Everything Changes
  • Linear
  • Random
  • Cyclical
• Everything must go somewhere
• Ours is a finite earth
• Nature is beautiful, and we are stewards of God’s creation

Philosophical Approaches to Environmental Ethics

• Anthropocentrism (Human-centered Ethics)
  • Human beings are the central, most important species in the universe.
  • The world focuses on people and their needs
• Biocentrism (Life-centered Ethics)
  • All life has a standpoint, regardless of its value to humans
  • Some people believe that all living organisms have the right to exist.
  • All life is interdependent.
• Eco-centrism
  • The essence of the system, rather than individuals, or species, holds moral weight.
  • 2. All forms of life are important.
  • The environment itself has moral worth.

Environmental Attitudes

• Developmental Approach
  • Tends to be the most anthropocentric.
  • Assumes humanity is above all.
  • Assumes that the human race is and should be the master of nature
  • Supports industrialization and modernization.
• Conservationists Approach
  • Concerned with using natural areas and wildlife to benefit present and future generations of human races and other forms of life.
• Preservationist Approach
  • Tends to be the most eco-centric towards the environment.
  • Concerned with the preservation of natural areas.

Ecology

• Study of the ways organisms interact with each other and with their non-living surroundings
• Yields to industrialization and modernization

Ecological Hierarchy

• Community Interactions
  • Three types of interactions:
    • Competition
    • Predation
    • Symbiosis

Organisms Interaction

• Obtaining food and energy

  • Producers - Make their own food
  • Consumers - Obtain food by eating other organisms
  • Decomposers - Unable to make their own food and decompose waste products and dead organisms.
  • Scavengers - Feed on the soft tissues of dead animals.

• Generalist vs. Specialist

  • Generalist - Eat many different types of foods
  • Specialist - Consume only a specific type of food.

• Competition

  • Arises when more than one organism struggles to obtain the same essential resources in the same habitat.

Types of Competition

• Interspecific Competition

  • Happens between members of two or more different species over resources.
  • Often leads to extinction.

• Intraspecific Competition

  • Arises between members of the same species
  • Individuals may compete over mates, water, sunlight, territory, or food energy sources.

• Mimicry

  • Organism resembles other species.
  • Batesian Mimicry - A harmless species imitates a harmful one.
  • Mullerian Mimicry - Various species share warning coloration but have their own defenses and resemble each other.

• Predation

  • Flow of energy between two organisms, predator and prey.
  • Latin word "praedari" - meaning 'to plunder'.

Types of Predation

• Carnivory - Predator kills and eats their prey.

• Herbivory - Predation involves consumption of autotrophs, such as plants or photosynthetic algae.

• Symbiosis

  • Close and long-term relationship between two or more different organisms
  • Mutualism - Both species benefit
  • Commensalism - One benefits, other is unaffected
  • Parasitism - One benefits, other is harmed.

Population Ecology

• Population - Group of individuals of the same species inhabiting the same area.
• Total numbers of individuals and the space they occupy per unit area.

Properties of a Population

• Population Size

  • Precise number of individuals in an area.
  • Sampling method - Used to make inferences about the population as a whole.
    • Quadrat - Square structure placed at random locations within the habitat
    • Mark and recapture - Animals are captured, marked, and released back into the environment to mix with the rest of the population.

• Population Density

  • Indicates how crowded the population is.

• Dispersion

  • Distribution of individuals throughout their range in an area.
  • Clumped - Aggregate in patches (like a wolf pack attacking prey)
  • Uniform - Evenly distributed (seen in territorial animal species)
  • Random - Unique pattern where each individual's position is independent of others

Population Growth

• Exponential Growth
  • Population increases in numbers without any limits to their resources or encounters some other limitation.
• Logistic Growth
  • As population size increases, resources will be depleted, and the growth rate will slow down due to limited resources.

Mortality Rate

• Measure of the number of deaths.
• Depending on various factors, like age and gender distribution.

Life Table

• Statistical tool summarizing the number of deaths of the population.
• Longevity and life expectancy (age of survival).

Migration/Immigration

• Movement of people from one place to another.
• Push - Where people leave the area due to problems.
• Pull - Where people go to a certain area for their own good/interest

Density-independent factors

• Growth is not dependent on the density of the population.
• Population increases at a rate determined by its biotic potential.

Density-dependent factors

• Growth influenced by the density of the population.

Demographic Data

• Important data sources
  • PSA and Census
• Age-sex structure - Population parameter that refers to the age and sex distribution of a population.