Terrestrial Ecology Reviewer PDF

**Terrestrial Ecology Reviewer** **Chapter 1. Introduction to Ecology** **Ecology** is the study of relationships among organisms and between organisms and the physical environment. **Evolution** a process by which populations change over time. **Population** is a group of interbreeding individu...

**Terrestrial Ecology Reviewer** **Chapter 1. Introduction to Ecology** **Ecology** is the study of relationships among organisms and between organisms and the physical environment. **Evolution** a process by which populations change over time. **Population** is a group of interbreeding individuals of a single species inhabiting a defined area. **Community** is an association of interacting species. **Ecosystem** is a biological community together with its associated physical and chemical environment. **Intellectual Territory of Landscape Ecology** study of exchanges of materials, energy, and organisms with other communities and ecosystems. **Biosphere** the portions of the earth that support life, including the land, waters, and atmosphere. **Two rapidly developing frontiers in ecology:** **Microbial ecology:** the study of the interactions among microorganisms and between them and their environment. **Urban ecology:** the study of urban areas as complex, dynamic ecological systems, influenced by interconnected, biological, physical, and social components. **Types of Research** **Observation** refers to the collection of data in unmanipulated settings, such as counting numbers of birds in a patch of forest or describing types of fungal spores seen through a microscope. **In situ** meaning in the habitat where the organisms live. **Robert MacArthur (1958, The Ecology of Forest Birds: Old Tools and New)** - Studied the ecology of 5 species of warblers that live together in the forest. - No 2 species can occupy the same niche. **Nalini Nadkarni ((1981 Forest Canopy Research: A Physical and Scientific Frontier)** - study the ecology of the unseen world of the forest canopy. - four times the nutrient content in trees leaves was found in - **epiphytes**---plants such as orchids, ferns, and mosses that grow on the tree trunks and branches **Ryan Norris (American Redstart or Setophaga Suticilla)-**male migratory birds. - He used stable isotope analysis in identifying food sources. **Margaret Davis (Climate and Ecological Change: Past and Future)** **Experimentation** refers to research that involves manipulation of variables of interest while holding others constant in order to test a hypothesis. **Ex situ** not in the natural environment. **Conceptual models** are those which describe systems in pictures or diagrams. **Quantitative models** are mathematical and may involve complex equations. **Modeling** is the creation and analysis of representations of data or ideas to provide insight or make predictions. **Citizen­scientists** non-scientists. **Chapter 2. Life on Land** **Biome** is an area classified according to the species that live in that location. **Natural history** the study of how organisms in a particular area are influenced by factors such as climate, soils, predators,competitors, and evolutionary history. **Functional traits**: particular characteristics that allow them to survive, such as waxy coatings on leaves that prevent water loss. **Selective­pressure** an evolutionary force that causes a particular phenotype to be more favorable in certain environmental conditions. **Primary ­producers** plants and other photosynthesizing organisms. **Secondary­producers** consumer organisms. **Polar easterlies** predominant wind direction is from the east **Coriolis effect** apparent deflection of winds to the right of their direction of travel and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. **Northeast and southeast trades** tropical latitudes observes winds that blow from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere **Westerlies** temperate belt between 30°and 60° latitude would observe that winds blow mainly from the west. **Climate diagrams** developed by Heinrich Walter (1985) as a tool to explore the relationship between the distribution of terrestrial vegetation and climate. - summarize a great deal of useful climatic information, including seasonal variation in temperature and precipitation, and the length and intensity of wet and dry seasons. **Rain shadow effect** dry climate that results - a patch of land that has been forced to become a desert because mountain ranges blocked all plant-growing, rainy weather. - rain shadow effect the phenomenon of an area receiving lower precipitation because wind-bearing moist air is blocked by mountains or hills, causing the release of moisture before reaching the leeward side, thus producing an arid "shadow." **Microclimates** temperature and moisture differ from the prevailing climate. **Soil** is a complex mixture of living and nonliving material upon which most terrestrial life depends. **O,** or **organic**, horizon lies at the top of the profile. - The most superficial layer of the O horizon is made up of freshly fallen organic matter, including whole leaves, twigs, and other plant parts, which become more fragmented and decomposed with increasing depth. **A horizon** contains a mixture of mineral materials, such as clay, silt, and sand, and incorporated organic material derived from the O horizon. - rich in mineral nutrients - gradually leached of clays, iron, aluminum, silicates, and humus, which is partially decomposed organic matter. **B horizon** contains the clays, humus, and other materials that have been transported by water from the A horizon. - The deposition of these materials often gives the B horizon a distinctive color and banding pattern. The B horizon gradually merges with the C horizon. **C horizon** is the deepest layer in our soil pit and the only one not typically dominated by plant roots. - consists of the weathered parent material, which has been worked by the actions of frost, water, and the deeper penetrating roots of plants **Geography of Biomes** **Tropical rain forest** spacious interior illuminated by dim, greenish light shining through a ceiling of leaves. - Nature's most extravagant garden. - broadleaf evergreen forest growing in tropical regions where conditions are warm and wet year-round. **Tropical dry forest** a broadleaf deciduous forest growing in tropical regions having pronounced wet and dry seasons; trees drop their leaves during the dry season. **Mycorrhizae** plants that cannot live without particular species of fungi, which help them absorb nutrients **Tropical savanna** tropical grassland dotted with scattered trees; characterized by pronounced wet and dry seasons and periodic fires **Desert** an arid biome occupying approximately 20% of the land sur face of the earth in which water loss due to evaporation and transpiration by plants exceeds precipitation during most of the year. **Lithosols** **Caliche** as desert soils age they tend to form a calcium carbonate--rich hardpan horizon. **Mediterranean woodland and shrubland** a biome associated with mild, moist winter conditions and usually with dry summers between about 30° and 40° latitude. The vegetation of this biome is usually characterized by small, tough (sclerophyllous) leaves and adapta tions to periodic fire. It is found around the Mediterranean Sea and in western North America, Chile, southern Australia, and southern Africa. It is known by many local names such as chapar ral, garigue, maquis, and fynbos meristematic tissue tissue made up of the actively dividing cells responsible for plant growth. **Garrigue** farther east in the Mediterranean basin. **Temperate grasslands** grasslands growing in middle latitudes that receive between 300 and 1,000 mm of annual precipitation, with maximum precipitation usually falling during the summer months.temperature a measure of the average kinetic energy, or energy of motion, of the molecules, in a mass of a substance, for example, a mass of air or of water. **Temperate Forest** deciduous or coniferous forests generally found between 40° and 50° latitude, where annual precipitation aver ages anywhere from about 650 mm to over 3,000 mm; this biome receives more winter precipitation than temperate grasslands receive. **Boreal Forest** northern forests that occupy the area south of arctic tundra. Though dominated by coniferous trees, they also contain aspen and birch. Also called taiga. bottom-up control control of a community or ecosystem by physical or chemical factors such as temperature or nutrient availability. **Tundra** a northern biome dominated by mosses, lichens, and dwarf willows, receiving low to moderate precipitation and having a very short growing season. - **Solifluction** **Mountains: A Diversity of Biomes** **Climate** refers to conditions considered over longer time periods. **Drought** can be defined as an extended period of dry weather during which precipitation is reduced sufficiently to damage crops, impair the functioning of natural ecosystems, or cause water shortages for human populations. **Palmer Drought Severity Index** an index of drought that uses temperature and precipitation to represent moisture conditions in a region relative to long-term average temperature and precipitation within the region. **CHAPTER 4. Population genetics and Natural Selection** **Abiotic** nonliving; physical or chemical rather than biological. **Biotic** living or derived from living organisms. **Evolution** a process that changes populations of organisms over time. Since evolution ultimately involves changes in the frequency of heritable traits in a population, we can define evolution more precisely as a change in gene frequencies in a population. **Darwin's theory** of natural selection can be summarized as follows: 1\. Organisms beget like organisms. (Offspring appear, behave, function, and so forth like their parents.) 2\. There are chance variations between individuals in a species. Some variations (differences among parents) are heritable (are passed on to offspring). 3\. More offspring are produced each generation than can be supported by the environment. 4\. Some individuals, because of their physical or behavioral traits, have a higher chance of surviving and reproducing than other individuals in the same population. - Darwin (1859) proposed that differential survival and reproduction of individuals would produce changes in species populations over time. **Genes** units of heredity; a segment of DNA composed of sequences of nucleotides**.** **Alleles** one of the alternative forms of the same gene **Allele frequencies** the proportions in which the different forms of a gene (alleles) are found in a population. **Artificial selection** selective breeding techniques used to develop or maintain desirable traits in domesticated plants and animals. **Common garden experiment** an experiment in which individuals from two or more populations are transplanted and grown in the same, or "common," environment, generally used to study the contributions of environment versus genetic factors to differences between populations. **Directional selection** a form of natural selection that favors an extreme phenotype over other phenotypes. **Disruptive selection** a form of natural selection that favors two or more extreme phenotypes over the average phenotype in a population. **Ecotype** locally adapted and genetically distinctive population within a species. **Fitness** the number of offspring contributed by an individual relative to the number of offspring produced by other members of the population. Ultimately defined as the relative genetic contribution of individuals to future generations. **Genetic drift** change in gene frequencies in a population due to chance or random events. **Genetic engineering** alteration of the genetic makeup of an organism through the introduction or deletion of genes; for example, the introduction of bacterial genes into crop plants to give them more resistance to insect pests. **Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) **organisms whose genetic makeup has been modified through the process of genetic engineering, generally through the deletion of genes or insertion of novel genes, often from different organisms. **Hardy-Weinberg principle** a principle that in a population mating at random in the absence of evolutionary forces, allele frequencies will remain constant. **Heritability** the proportion of total phenotypic variation in a trait attributable to genetic variation; determines the potential for evolutionary change in a trait. **Inbreeding** mating between close relatives. Inbreeding tends to increase levels of homozygosity in populations and often results in offspring with lower survival and reproductive rates. **Locus** a position on a specific chromosome for a gene that codes for differences in wing pattern. **Microsatellite DNA** sequence of tandemly repetitive DNA, in which a few base pairs, for example, three base pairs, are repeated up to 100 times. **Natural selection** differential reproduction and survival of individuals in a population due to environmental influences on the population; proposed by Charles Darwin as the primary mechanism driving evolution. **Phenotype** the observable characteristics of an organism that result from interactions between the genetic makeup of the individual and its environment. **Phenotypic plasticity** variation among individuals in form and function as a result of environmental influences. **Polygenic traits** traits determined by the effects of many genes. **Population genetics** study of the genetics of populations positive phototaxis movement of an organism toward light. **Quantitative genetics** the mathematical treatment of continuously varying traits and how they respond to natural selection. **Stabilizing selection** a form of natural selection that acts against extreme phenotypes; can act to impede changes in populations. **CHAPTER 5 Temperature and Relations** **Acclimation **physiological adjustment to change in a particular environmental factor, such as temperature or salinity. **Conduction** the movement of heat between objects in direct physical contact. **Convection** the process of heat flow or transfer to a moving fluid, such as wind or flowing water. **Ectotherm **an organism that relies mainly on external sources of energy for regulating body temperature. **Endotherm** an organism that relies mainly on internal sources of energy for regulating body temperature. **Estivation** a dormant state that some animals enter during the summer; involves a reduction of metabolic rate. **Evaporation **the process by which a liquid changes from liquid phase to a gas, as in the change from liquid water to water vapor. **Heat **the kinetic energy resulting from molecular motion in a mass of a substance, also referred to as heat energy. Heat can be transferred by conduction, convection, or radiation. **Hibernation** a dormant state, involving reduced metabolic rate, that occurs in some animals during the winter. **Homeotherm **an organism that uses metabolic energy to maintain a relatively constant body temperature; such organisms are often called warm-blooded. **Macroclimate** the prevailing weather conditions of a region over a long period of time. **Metabolic heat** energy released within an organism during the process of cellular respiration. **Microclimates** smaller areas that differ in temperature and/or moisture than the prevailing climate; caused by factors such as a distinctive substrate, location, or aspect. **Photosynthesis **process in which the photosynthetic pigments of plants, algae, or bacteria absorb light and transfer their energy to electrons; the energy carried by these electrons is used to synthesize ATP and NADPH, which in turn serve as donors of electrons and energy for the synthesis of sugars. **Poikilotherm **organisms whose body temperature varies directly with environmental temperatures; commonly called cold-blooded. **Principle of allocation** the principle that if an organism allocates energy to one function, such as growth or reproduction, it reduces the amount of energy available to other functions, such as defense. **Psychrophilic **organisms that live and thrive at temperatures below 20°C. **Pubescence** soft or fine hairs, such as those found on leaves or parts of insects. **Radiation** the transfer of heat through electromagnetic radiation, mainly infrared light. **Riparian vegetation** vegetation growth along rivers or streams. **RM endothermy** is a type of regional endothermy found in certain species of fish, particularly sharks and tunas. It involves the ability to maintain the temperature of their red muscle (RM) significantly higher than the surrounding water **Temperature** a measure of the average kinetic energy, or energy of motion, of the molecules, in a mass of a substance, for example, a mass of air or of water. **Thermal neutral zone** the range of environmental temperatures over which the metabolic rate of a homeothermic animal does not change. **Thermophilic **a term applied to organisms that tolerate or require high-temperature environments. **Torpor **a state of low metabolic rate and lowered body temperature.