LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Ecology
UNIT NOTES and REVIEW QUIZZES
Use these notes to learn the facts and to test yourself. They consist of questions and answers so you can test yourself by covering up the answer while you ask yourself the question - or get someone else to ask you the question. When the unit is over use the review quizzes to test your knowledge.
Objective 1: What are the different roles organisms play in communities?
You will need to understand how different organisms obtain their nutrition in ecosystems - i.e. how they get their energy. You will also be introduced to a lot of terminology that is used to decibel aspects of ecosystems.
WORDS:
Ecology, Community, Population, Ecosystem, Organism, Molecule, Organelle, Atom, Tissue, Organ, Organ system, Biosphere, Cell, Species, Habitat , Environment, Abiotic , Biotic , Autotrophic, Heterotrophic, Consumer, Primary consumer, Secondary consumer, Tertiary consumer, Detritivore, Saprotroph, Organic, Inorganic, Sustainable, Mesocosm, Herbivore, Producer, Carnivore, Decomposer, Scavenger, Parasite, Omnivore, Fertile, Predator, Offspring, Extracellular digestion, Nutrient recycling, Secretion, Ingests.
Learn the words: Matching Game 1 - Learn the words: Matching Game 2 - Learn the words: Matching Game 3
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. What is ecology?
2. What are the levels of biological organisation, organism, population, community, ecosystem and biosphere?
3. What are habitat and environment?
4. What is the difference between biotic and abiotic factors?
5. What are autotrophs and heterotrophs?
6. Are there exceptions to being either an autotroph or heterotroph? Are these exceptions to the pattern or trend?
7. What do the terms consumer, detritivore and saproptroph mean?
8. What is extracellular digestion and how does it differ from ingestion?
9. Skill: Classify species as autotrophs, consumers, detritivores or saprotrophs from a knowledge of their mode of nutrition.
Objective 2: How do we determine whether species are associated?
You will need to understand how a statistical test called a Chi-squared test can be used to determine if two species are associated or not (i.e. if they are found together or not).
WORDS:
Species association, Negative association, Positive association, Chi-squared, Null hypothesis, Frequency, Contingency table.
Learn the words: Matching Game 1
LEARNING OUTCOMES
11. How are species distributed in habitats?
2. What are positive and negative species associations?
3. How do we determine species association with a contingency table?
4. What is the chi-squared test?
5. What is the null hypothesis?
6. Skill: Test association between two species using the chi-squared test with data obtained by quadrat sampling.
7. Skill: Recognising and interpreting statistical significance.
Objective 3: How do we take random samples in the field to determine population size?
You will need to understand how it is possible to randomly sample a population in the field, to determine the population size, using quadrats. This is also a good time to learn some of the experimental skills needed to write a good practical report.
WORDS:
Quadrat, Random.
Learn the words: Matching Game 1
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. How are quadrats used to estimate population size?
2. What is random sampling?
3. How can we make sampling random in the field?
4 Skill: How do you analyse investigations by selecting, recording, processing and interpreting data in ways that are relevant to the research question and can support a conclusion?
5. Skill: How can I communicate the focus, process and outcomes of an investigation?
6. What are the criteria for experimental skill assessment?
7. Skill: How can you evaluate investigations and results with regard to the research question and accepted scientific context?
Objective 4: How are species linked in food webs?
You will need to understand how organisms are linked together in food chains as energy is passed from one to the other. You must be able to identify the trophic level of an organism, especially from diagrams called food webs. It is really important to be able to compare the way energy and nutrients move through ecosystems. You should recognise what makes ecosystems sustainable and be able to set up a mesocosm to study ecosystems.
WORDS:
Food chain, Food web, Energy flow, Biomass, Pyramid of biomass, Cellular Respiration, Pyramid of energy, Pyramid of numbers, Trophic level, Quantitative, Insolation, Decomposition, Nutrients.
Learn the words: Matching Game 1
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. What is a food chain and how is it represented?
2. What is a food web and what does it show?
3. What is a trophic level and how are they assigned?
4. Do organisms fit neatly into trophic levels?
5. Do populations live in isolation?
6. How do organisms need inorganic nutrients, and how are they influenced by their abiotic environment?
7. How do energy and nutrients move through ecosystems?
8. How is the movement of nutrients influenced and maintained by organisms?
9. What things make ecosystems sustainable?
10. What is the original source of energy in ecosystems?
11. What is a mesocosm and how is it used?
12. Skill: Set up a sealed mesocosm to try to establish sustainability. (Practical 3)
13. How does the continued survival of humans and other living organisms depend on the sustainability of communities?
14. How could human activities be more sustainable?
Objective 5: What limits the length of food chains?
You will need to understand what happens to the energy that moves along food chains, how it is lost from the ecosystem, and how this limits the length of a food chain. We use the 10% rule to represent this idea. You should also understand that this affects the world's food supply and hence world hunger. You should be able to represent the energy at each step in a food chain by a pyramid of energy.
WORDS:
No new words, see last objective
LEARNING OUTCOMES
11. What is energy transformation? What transformations occur in photosynthesis?
2. What is the source of energy that most ecosystems rely upon?
3. How does energy flow through food chains?
4. What happens to the energy in carbon compounds inside living organisms?
5. What happens to the energy as it moves along food chains?
6. How efficient are the energy transfers in food chains?
7. What happens to waste energy? Can organisms use it?
8. What limits or restricts the length of food chains?
9. What is biomass and how is it measured?
10. How do we represent food chains as pyramids?
11. Why do some pyramids have unusual shapes?
12. What are the units for energy in pyramids?
13. Skill: Represent energy flow quantitatively by constructing pyramids of energy.
14. What happens to biomass as it moves along food chains?
15. How do the energetics of food chains limit the ability to alleviate world hunger?
16. Why do ecosystems need a continuous supply of energy?
17. What is the difference in the way energy and nutrients move through ecosystems?
Objective 6: How is carbon cycled in ecosystems?
You will need to understand how carbon moves in ecosystems, using a diagram called a carbon cycle to represent the flows and storage of carbon. You should be able to interpret such diagrams to suggest ways to impact on carbon build up in the atmosphere. It is expected that you will know the different forms of carbon storage and how they form (brief) and how human activities impact on global carbon.
WORDS:
Combustion, Fossil fuel, Fossilisation, Carbon fixation, Detritus, Industrial age, Peat, Methanogenesis, Oxidation, Limestone, Reservoir, Flux, Carbon Cycle, Methane, Pool or Sink, Global, Permafrost, Ice Core, Anthropogenic, Methanogens, Coal.
Learn the words: Matching Game 1 - Learn the words: Matching Game 2
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. What is carbon fixation?
2. What happens to carbon dioxide in water?
3. Why do carbon dioxide levels change during the day?
4. What is methanogenesis?
5. Where does methanogenesis happen and which organisms carry it out?
6. What is peat and how does it form?
7. What is coal and how does it form?
8. What are oil and natural gas, and how do they form?
9. What is combustion and how does it affect atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide?
10. What is limestone and how does it form?
11. What is the carbon cycle?
12. How are the terms pool and flux used in cycles of nutrients?
13. Where is most carbon stored?
14. What is environmental monitoring and what hypotheses or predictions are being tested by this monitoring?
15. How is a continuous supply of carbon in ecosystems ensured?
16. How is carbon present in aquatic ecosystems?
17. How do autotrophs take in carbon?
18. How do organisms add carbon to the atmosphere?
19. What happens to methane in the atmosphere?
20. How do animals accumulate carbon, including corals and Mollusca?
21. What are the issues in converting maize from a food crop to a fuel crop?
22. Skill: Estimate carbon fluxes due to processes in the carbon cycle.
23. Skill: Analyse data from air monitoring stations to explain annual fluctuations.
24. Skill: Construct a diagram of the carbon cycle.
Objective 7: What are greenhouse gases and why are they important?
You will need to understand how some gases in the atmosphere trap heat, warming the planet Earth, like a greenhouse. You should be aware where these gases come from and how they have changed in concentration in recent years. It is important to understand the reasons for these changes including human activities. You shoudl lik these changes to temperature changes and some knowledge of how we collect data on these changes is expected.
WORDS:
? – ?
Learn the words: Matching Game 1 - Learn the words: Matching Game 2 - Learn the words: Matching Game 3
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. What is the greenhouse effect and why does it occur?
2. How does the absorption of radiation by the atmosphere compare on the way to the Earth and away from Earth?
3. What are greenhouse gases?
4. Which are the most significant greenhouse gases and why is this? Where do they come from?
5. What determines a gases’ impact on greenhouse effect?
5. What is the enhanced greenhouse effect?
6. What does anthropogenic mean?
7. How have carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere change over time?
8. Where has the recently increased carbon dioxide come from?
9. Where has carbon dioxide and temperature data come from?
10. How has the concentration of gases in the atmosphere affected climates experienced at the Earth’s surface?
Objective 8: What is climate change?
You will need to understand how human activities may have led to the climate change that we are experiencing, and be able to describe predicted changes in the future, if our activities continue. It is also important to be able to discuss paradigms and how they change, and the reasons people might have to support a particular viewpoint.
WORDS:
Greenhouse effect, Catastrophic, Carbon sink, Arctic ecosystem, Precautionary principle, Biome, Radiation, Coastal inundation, Positive feedback, Global warming, Greenhouse gas, Enhanced greenhouse, Thermal expansion, Glacier, Causation, Positive correlation, Biome shift, Albedo effect
Learn the words: Matching Game 1 - Learn the words: Matching Game 2
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. What has happened to temperatures over time?
2. What is the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature over time (last 200 years)?
3. What is the difference between a positive correlation and causation?
4. What is the precautionary principle?
5. Should the precautionary principle be applied to enhanced global warming?
6. What are the predicted effects of global warming?
7. What is biome shifting?
8. What is coastal inundation?
9. What is thermal expansion?
10. What are LEDCs?
11. What is the albedo effect?
12. How can positive feedback effect climate change?
13. How can we assess the claims and counterclaims regarding climate change?
14. What is a paradigm?
15. What is funding bias?
16. What are the threats of increased concentrations of carbon dioxide to coral reefs?
17. Can you evaluate claims that human activities are not causing climate change?
18. How is this an international problem?
19. Is certainty ever possible in the natural sciences?
20. Is ozone depletion a cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect?
ASK QUESTIONS
If you have any questions on this topic you can use this form to ask them. I will reply as soon as possible. All questions and answers will be posted below - you may find other people's questions helpful also.
Your Questions and Answers
1. Question...
Answer...
