Term
| 1. What factors contribute to the low life expectancy in many countries? |
|
Definition
Any factor (limiting factor) in the environment influencing carrying capacity.
Four main factors:
Raw material availability
Energy availability
Waste accumulation and disposal
Organism interaction |
|
|
Term
| 2. Know the story of Easter Island and the reasons for their population crash. |
|
Definition
Without the trees, the rich soil washed into the ocean
now difficult to grow crops; carrying capacity of island decreased |
|
|
Term
| 3. What is the difference between local and total carrying capacity? What is the result of using renewable resources way beyond their sustainable limit? |
|
Definition
In many parts of the world, food availability is the first limiting factor
- 1 billion people malnourished
- conversion of forests to agriculture OK in short term, but lowers productivity in long term
Other parts of the world have excess food, but use tremendous amounts of fossil fuels |
|
|
Term
| 4. Understand how energy flows through the food web |
|
Definition
| Food Chain — Passage of energy from one trophic level to the next due to one organism consuming another. |
|
|
Term
| Understand bioaccumulation and how that can affect human populations |
|
Definition
| Biomagnification - an accumulation of a contaminant in an organism at a higher trophic level |
|
|
Term
| 1.Be familiar with the system for classifying living things. Know the biological species concept. |
|
Definition
Classification ranked according to
- similarity
- common ancestry
Species are groups of interbreeding organisms.-Biological Species Concept |
|
|
Term
| 2.Be able to define biological diversity and scales of diversity. |
|
Definition
“the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur”
Ecosystem level diversity - Variation in ecosystems across a
landscape or region.
Community level diversity - Variation in species assemblages
based on variation in habitat within an ecosystem type.
Species diversity - The number of species in a given community.
Genetic diversity - Amount of genetic variation within or among populations of a given species. |
|
|
Term
| 3.Know the relative diversity of different animal phyla |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| 4.Understand historical versus current extinction rates. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| 5.Understand 2 principle ways that nature can advance science |
|
Definition
1) Nature provides compounds of immense
importance to science and medicine
2) Nature provides inspiration for a wide
variety of scientific disciplines |
|
|
Term
| 6.Understand the tragedy of the commons. |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| concept of ecosystem engineers |
|
Definition
Influence communities by physically modifying an ecosystem
Beaver : Transforms its territory from a stream to a small pond or swamp |
|
|
