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| assemblages of interacting populations of species |
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| what two things comprise the structure of a biological community? |
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| sum of all interactions, both biological and physical, that an organism experiences (space where species survive and reproduce) |
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| all elements of an ecosystem that an organism could potentially exploit |
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| what the organism actually uses and inhabits do to competition, predation, and disturbance |
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| struggle of two organisms to use the same resource when there's not enough to go around |
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| when one species wins out during competition and the other becomes extinct |
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| competitors can coexist by specializing on a subset of the limiting resource |
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| "ghosts of competition past" |
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| reflects on events that happened years ago to allow organisms to coexist |
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| some aspect of anatomy, or behavior, or physiology is different and allows for a difference in the use of the limiting resource |
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| how does environmental variability increase the number of competing species? |
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| by constantly shifting the competitive advantage from one species to the next |
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| interaction is beneficial to one species, but negative for the other; dictates flow of energy though an ecosystem |
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increase the diversity of a community by limiting the growth of a competitively superior prey (too much growth of prey would push others out)
ex. sea urchins and sea otters |
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| where prey can avoid being eaten (being active when predators are not or creating physical protection) |
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| "co-evolutionary arms race" |
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| as predators become more efficient, prey are subjected to intense natural selection for defensive mechanisms (toxins, mimicry, etc) and become better adapted too |
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| when a predator switches to a new prey because the old one was too rare; this involves changes in the search image and food preferences of the predator |
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| increase in prey items with the removal or natural predators (i.e. deer in connecticut) |
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| what makes linked cycles less likely to happen? |
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1. density is high, diversity is low
2. ratios in the number of each sex in the population (pollution act as environmental hormones; too many females in one ecosystem would be a biological marker) |
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| Anous Lizards are an example of... |
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| character displacement; the pads on their fingers are different; they coexisit because they have different pads on fingers (also leads to resource partitioning) |
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| self-sustaining network of interactions between biological communities and the physical environment (habitat) in which they are found |
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| the biological part of an ecosystem |
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| part of the earth of the atmosphere that can support life and that organisms inhabit |
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| what two ways can ecosystems be analyzes |
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| energy flows and material cycles |
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| the tendency for toxic substances to increase as they move up the food chain |
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| the decomposes--includes bacteria and fungi but also anything that eats dead stuff (vultures, worms, insects) |
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| how organisms get energy from sources other than the sun (deep-sea thermal vents) |
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| the amount of organic material |
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| explosion of algal growth (an algal "bloom"); phosphorus moves to the top of the pond |
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| phosphorus is a limiting nutrient for... |
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| warm water at the suface, and cold water at the bottom locks in phosphorus so algae can't use it |
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| latitude lines; no land masses to break up the windflow |
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| network of feeding relationships in an ecosystem |
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| backwards flow of warm water from the south pacific toward south america that can have a dramatic effect on global weather and biological communities |
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| an environmental hormone that imitates the act of estrogen |
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| accumulation of the algal diatoms; have toxins that create paralysis; shellfish themselves wont be damaged but the toxins will be bio-magnified up the food chain |
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short term memory less; animals beaching themselves
ex. "birds" |
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| most used weed killing herbicide (kills superweeds); also acts as an environmental estrogen; banned in many countries; may be linked to breast cancer |
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| two females together watch over a nest of eggs; biological marker of pollution when there's a lot of eggs in a nest |
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| two main types of sexual selection: |
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1) female choice
2) male-male combat/competition |
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| what does female sexual selection lead to? |
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| more maladaptive characteristics in males (more showy males); even if this behavior makes them more susceptible to predators, it's a sign of a healthy immune system and the females pick them; reproduction is the ultimate goal |
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| what does male-male combat lead to? |
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| leads to larger, more robust males (larger body size and "weapons") |
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| sexual selection leads to this and makes the sexes differ in form or behavior |
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| primary sexual characteristics |
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Definition
| traits related to the physical act of reproduction (intercourse); sex organs and genitalia that you're born with |
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| secondary sexual characteristics |
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| develop later in life or under sexual selection, develop under the influence of hormones (muscle size, breasts, bright plumage, colors, courtship displays) |
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| examples of human sexual dimorphism |
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| body size, fat storage, skull shape, pelvic shape, lumber lordosis (spine curvature), muscle development, relative aggression, breasts |
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1) descent with modification
2) change in gene frequencies within a population over time |
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| example of incremental (gradual) evolution |
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| horse evolution documented by fossil records |
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two parts that are homologous that are the same part in two or more different organisms that have descended from the same ancestor VERY IMPORTANT
ex. pentadactyl limb that terrestrial vertebrates use |
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| example of a transitional animal |
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| Tiktaalik or "large shallow water fish", missing connection between fish and walking land creatures |
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| despite differences in phenotypes between distantly related animal groups, they pass through a remarkably similar early development stage (embryo)-result of evolving from a common ancestor |
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| random processes or evolution |
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| point mutation, genetic drift, immigration &emigration, founder effect |
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| natural selection, external vs internal components of selection, sexual selection |
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| 1)mutation, 2) not all individuals mate, 3) allele frequencies change from one population to the next, 4) random, independent assortment of alleles during meiosis and mating |
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| an example of adaptive evolution... |
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| nucleotide in a DNA molecule flips from one type from another type usually because of radiation; source of most genetic variation |
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| average traits are preferred (most common) |
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| changing environment pushes the phenotype to one extreme |
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| being average is not ideal; both extremes are preferred (bi-modal distribution) |
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| natural selection increases.... |
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| average fitness of a population, while random evolutionary processes decrease it |
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| STRAIGHT LINE; the same population changes into difference species over time; ancestral and current species are two different species |
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| one species gives rise to two daughter species (chronospecies) |
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| ancestral species divided by barrier (usually environmental) leading to reproductive isolation; can be slow (continental drift) or fast (earthquake) |
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| example of allopatric speciation |
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| kaibab squirrel and albert's squirrel divided by the geographic barrier of the grand canyon |
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| mostly developed by anatomy, sometimes behavioral traits |
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| nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are used in phylogeny reconstruction |
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| bacteria, archaea, eucarya |
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| familiar prokaryotic cells |
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| prokaryotic cells, some may be similar to the oldest life forms; typically live in extreme or harsh conditions (hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean) |
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