The following questions will
help you to review the material from the lectures and the text.
In this section you should also study the lab exercise on marine
ecology
(the computer simulation).
What does an ecologist
study?
What are the different
"levels"
of the field of ecology? Briefly define each of these "levels".
What is the difference
between
biotic and abiotic factors? Give three examples of each.
What is the connection
between
evolutionary theory and ecology?
Define exponential
population
growth.
Consider a population
that doubles
every 2 weeks. Your calculations indicate that when the population
reaches
a level of 6,000 individuals it will be taking up all the resources in
their habitat. This will occur around March 1, 2006. You have decided
to
act when the populations is at a level of 3,000 individuals. On what
date
do you need to act? What is the take-home lesson of population growth
based
on this simple example?
Define carrying capacity
(K).
What is the importance of this concept in marine biology?
Why does does population
growth
slow as the level of the population is approaching K? What kind of
factors
come into play?
Define community. What
do you
study as a community ecologist?
Explain the concept of
competition.
What is the difference
between
interspecific and intraspecific competition? Give an example of each.
Define the niche concept.
How does the example of
the barnacle
species Balanus and Chthamalus illustrate the process
of
competition and the niche concept?
How does resource
partitioning
reduce competition?
What is resource
partitioning?
Use the example of the variety of shorebirds and their morphological
variation
to explain the concept.
What is coevolution?
What is the
effect of coevolution on the interactions within a community?
What are the different
"forces"
that shape a community?
What is the role of
predation
in this process. Can you think about any examples of how the process of
predation has shaped the interactions in a marine community?
What is symbiosis? What
are the
different types of symbiosis? Give a marine example of each type.
In which of these
categories do
zooxanthellae fit in? Explain.
Define the concept of an
ecosystem.
What do you study as an ecosystem ecologist?
What is the ultimate
origin of
most of the energy that flows through an ecosystem? What is the
ultimate
fate of this energy?
How does the flow of
energy through
an ecosystem contrast with the flow of elements?
What is a producer? A
consumer?
Examples? What are trophic levels?
What is the difference
between
an autotroph and a heterotroph?
Give an example of an
aquatic
food chain. Label the different trophic levels in the chain.
What is the importance
of decomposers?
What kind of organisms are decomposers? What is detritus? What is DOM?
How do marine food
chains differ
from terrestrial food chains?
A food chain is a
pedagogical
device to understand interactions between different trophic levels. The
interactions in a community are better described with the help of a
food
web. Why is that? What is a food web?
How does an organism use
the energy
that it takes in through food items? What happens to the bulk of the
energy
contained in the food matter?
How much of the energy
from the
sun light is actually captured in a producer? How much is lost?
Approximately how much
of the
energy moves from one trophic level to another? What happens to the
rest
of the energy?
Why do baleen whales
feed on the
lower levels of the food chain?
Is there a connection
between
the number of individual organisms and the amount of energy present on
each trophic level? Explain.
How do terrestrial and
aquatic
food chains differ in terms of biomass and energy flow between each
trophic
level?
What is primary
productivity?
How is it measured? What does it indicate about an ecosystem?
Which of the marine
biomes are
most productive (top three?). Least productive?
How does the
productivity of these
biomes compare to the terrestrial environment?
Indicate on a map the
most productive
areas of the world's oceans.
What is a biogeochemical
cycle?
What do you learn from such cycles? Use the carbon cycle to illustrate
how the element carbon (C) moves between different biological and
geological
components.
What is the difference
between
plankton, nekton and the benthos? Between phytoplankton and
zooplankton?
Between epifauna and infauna?
Briefly outline the
different
zones in the marine environment based on the distance from land and the
water depth.
Page created
by:
Peter
Svensson Updated:
November
5, 2008
