Case Study: Sea Otters, Sea Urchins, and Kelp: Indirect Effects of Species on One Another
1: Define: Community Effect
When an animal decreases the size of a population that destroys a habitat indirectly.
2: Explain WHY the Sea Otter is considered the Keystone Species in this ecosystem. (Hint: Explain the food chain)
Because they eat sea urchins and sea urchins eat kelp which is home to many different marine organisms.
3: Why were Sea Otters endangered and how did their numbers rebound?
They were brought almost to extinction by commercial hunting for their fur during the 18th and 19th century. Several small populations survived and have increased since then so today sea otters numbers are in the hundreds of thousands.
5.1- The Ecosystem: Sustaining Life on Earth
1: Define Ecosystem Structure
The ecosystem has two major parts living and non living. Living parts are known as ecological community and nonliving parts include physical chemical environments like atmosphere water and mineral land.
2: What two main processes must occur to maintain an ecosystem?
Cycling of chemical elements and a flow of energy.
5.2- Ecological Communities and Food Chains
1: What is the difference between a food chain and a food web?
Food chains follow a single path as animals eat each other, while a food web shows how plants and animals are interconnected by different paths.
2: Define: Trophic Level
Organisms in a food web with the same number of feeding levels away from the energy source.
3: Define:
Autotrophs: Use sunlight to produce their own food.
Heterotrophs: An organism that is unable to obtain its carbon from carbon dioxide.
Carnivores: Meat eaters
Herbivores: Plant eaters
Decomposers: Eat waste or decaying matter.
4: Explain the food web of Yellowstone Hot Springs. Explain each trophic level (include a photo).
The first level is the photosynthetic bacteria and algae. The second level is the Ephydrid flies (herbivores). The third level is the carnivores and the last level is the decomposers.
5: Explain a pelagic ecosystem. Explain each trophic level (include photos).
The pelagic zone of the ocean begins at the low tide mark and includes the entire oceanic water column. The pelagic ecosystem is largely dependent on the phytoplankton inhabiting the upper, sunlit regions, where most ocean organisms live. Biodiversity decreases sharply in the unlit zones where water pressure is high, temperatures are cold, and food sources scarce.
A Closer Look- Land and Marine Food Webs
1: Look at the terrestrial food web. Should we include people within this ecosystem’s food web? That would place us within nature. OR should we place people outside of the ecosystem, thus separate from nature?
Humans should be put in the ecosystems food web, because we are a big part of the ecosystem.
5.3- Ecosystems as Systems
1: Why are ecosystems considered to be OPEN systems?
Energy and matter in the ecosystems can move in and out of them.
2: Define: Watershed
The area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place.
5.4- Biological Production and Ecosystem Energy Flow
1: Define: Energy
The ability to do work and transfer heat
2: Explain: Ecosystem Energy Flow- What two ways does energy enter an ecosystem?
The flow of energy through a food chain. Energy enters an ecosystem from heat from the sun and by moving through food webs.
The Laws of Thermodynamics and the Ultimate Limit on the Abundance of Life
1: The First Law of Thermodynamics is also known as what? Define it.
Is also known as Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed; it can only be redistributed or changed from one form to another.
2: What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics say?
It says that the entropy of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases.
3: Define Entropy (give an example).
Measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work. The amount of disorder in a system. Volcanic activity is an example.
4: What is an intermediate system?
Ecosystem must lie between a source of usable energy and a sink for degraded energy.
5.5- Biological Production and Biomass
1: What is biomass?
The total mass of organisms in a given area or volume.
2: Define the following:
* Biological Production: Capture of usable energy from environment to produce organic matter
* Gross Production: Increase in stored energy
* Net Production: Amount of newly acquired energy stored after energy was used
3: What are the 3 measures that are used for biomass and biological production?
Quantity of organic material, energy stored and carbon stored.
4: What is primary production- who carries this out?
The flow of energy through any ecosystem starts with the fixation of sunlight by plants and other autotrophic organisms. Is carried out by autotrophs.
5: What is secondary production- who is involved?
Is the conversion of raw materials to finished products. Heterotrophs are
involved.
6: Who are chemoautotrophs? Explain- where are they usually found?
Bacteria that obtain energy by the oxidation of electron donors in their environments. They are found deep-ocean vents and muds of marshes.
5.6- Energy Efficiency and Transfer Efficiency
1: What is energy efficiency?
Energy efficiency is the ratio of output to input. It's available energy.
2: How would energy efficiency look with a wolf and moose population? Explain.
How would energy efficiency look with a wolf and moose population, is highly energy efficient. Wolves store almost nothing.
3: What is food-chain or trophic level efficiency?
Food-chain or trophic level efficiency is a common ecological measure of energy efficiency. Which is the ratio of production of 1 trophic level to the production of the next-lower trophic level.
4: Generally, how much energy is lost to heat when being transferred between trophic levels?
Generally less than 1% of the heat is loss when being transferred between trophic levels.
5.7- Ecological Stability and Succession
1: What is ecological succession?
Ecological succession is the gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established.
2: Compare and contrast primary and secondary succession- give an example of each.
Primary succession is one of two types of biological and ecological succession of plant life, occurring in an environment in which new substrate devoid of vegetation and usually lacking soil, such as a lava flow or area left from retreated glacier, is deposited. Secondary succession is one of the two types of ecological succession of plant life. As opposed to the first, primary succession, secondary succession is a process started by an event that reduces an already established ecosystem to a smaller population of species.
3: Explain how succession would look in a Dune.
Extremely sandy. Dune grass shoots appears scattered on the slope.
4: Explain how succession would look in a Bog.
It's an open body of water with no surface inlets. They usually have small streams.
5: Explain how succession would look in an old-field.
Succession would look in an old-field is dry and plain with plain grasses and trees.
6: Explain how succession would look in a coral reef.
Succession would look in a coral reef, is colorful, and full of life.
5.9- How Species Change Succession
1: Explain facilitation in succession and where is it most common?
Facilitation in succession changes the local environment in ways that make it suitable for another species. It's most common in tropical rainforests.
2: Explain interference in succession and what it can lead to.
An interference in succession changes the local environment so it is unsuitable to another species. It could lead to death of patch of grass from disease or removal by fire.
3: What is chronic patchiness? When does this occur?
Chronic Patchiness is cases where no species interact through succession. It occurs in warm desserts.
Critical Thinking Issue: Should People Eat Lower on the Food Chain?
1:Why does the energy content decrease at each higher level of a food chain? What happens to the energy lost at each level?
10% of energy gets passed on, because the rest of it gets used by the previous animal.
2: Why it is appropriate to use mass to represent energy content?
Energy is represented by autotrophs.
3: Using the average of 21 kilojoules of energy to equal 1g of completely dried vegetation and assuming that wheat is 80% water, what is the energy content of the 333,000 kg of wheat shown in the pyramid? (show your work).
4: Make a list of environmental arguments for and against an entirely vegetarian diet for people. What might be the consequences for the United States agriculture if everyone in the country began to eat lower on the food chain?
5: How low do you eat on the food chain? Would you be willing to eat lower? Explain.
I could be a primary consumer, but I prefer to be a heterotroph. The reason is because my dad make a turkey burger taste like heaven.
Study Questions:
1: Farming has been described as managing land to keep it in an early stage of succession. What does this mean, and how is it achieved?
2: Keep track of the food you eat during one day and make a food chain linking yourself with the sources of those foods.
Determine the biomass (grams) and energy (kilocalories) you have eaten.
Using an average of 5Kcal/g, then using the information on food packaging or assuming that your net production is 10% efficient in terms of energy intake, how much additional energy might you have stored during the day? (What is your weight gain from the food you have eaten?)
1: Define: Community Effect
When an animal decreases the size of a population that destroys a habitat indirectly.
2: Explain WHY the Sea Otter is considered the Keystone Species in this ecosystem. (Hint: Explain the food chain)
Because they eat sea urchins and sea urchins eat kelp which is home to many different marine organisms.
3: Why were Sea Otters endangered and how did their numbers rebound?
They were brought almost to extinction by commercial hunting for their fur during the 18th and 19th century. Several small populations survived and have increased since then so today sea otters numbers are in the hundreds of thousands.
5.1- The Ecosystem: Sustaining Life on Earth
1: Define Ecosystem Structure
The ecosystem has two major parts living and non living. Living parts are known as ecological community and nonliving parts include physical chemical environments like atmosphere water and mineral land.
2: What two main processes must occur to maintain an ecosystem?
Cycling of chemical elements and a flow of energy.
5.2- Ecological Communities and Food Chains
1: What is the difference between a food chain and a food web?
Food chains follow a single path as animals eat each other, while a food web shows how plants and animals are interconnected by different paths.
2: Define: Trophic Level
Organisms in a food web with the same number of feeding levels away from the energy source.
3: Define:
Autotrophs: Use sunlight to produce their own food.
Heterotrophs: An organism that is unable to obtain its carbon from carbon dioxide.
Carnivores: Meat eaters
Herbivores: Plant eaters
Decomposers: Eat waste or decaying matter.
4: Explain the food web of Yellowstone Hot Springs. Explain each trophic level (include a photo).
The first level is the photosynthetic bacteria and algae. The second level is the Ephydrid flies (herbivores). The third level is the carnivores and the last level is the decomposers.
5: Explain a pelagic ecosystem. Explain each trophic level (include photos).
The pelagic zone of the ocean begins at the low tide mark and includes the entire oceanic water column. The pelagic ecosystem is largely dependent on the phytoplankton inhabiting the upper, sunlit regions, where most ocean organisms live. Biodiversity decreases sharply in the unlit zones where water pressure is high, temperatures are cold, and food sources scarce.
A Closer Look- Land and Marine Food Webs
1: Look at the terrestrial food web. Should we include people within this ecosystem’s food web? That would place us within nature. OR should we place people outside of the ecosystem, thus separate from nature?
Humans should be put in the ecosystems food web, because we are a big part of the ecosystem.
5.3- Ecosystems as Systems
1: Why are ecosystems considered to be OPEN systems?
Energy and matter in the ecosystems can move in and out of them.
2: Define: Watershed
The area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place.
5.4- Biological Production and Ecosystem Energy Flow
1: Define: Energy
The ability to do work and transfer heat
2: Explain: Ecosystem Energy Flow- What two ways does energy enter an ecosystem?
The flow of energy through a food chain. Energy enters an ecosystem from heat from the sun and by moving through food webs.
The Laws of Thermodynamics and the Ultimate Limit on the Abundance of Life
1: The First Law of Thermodynamics is also known as what? Define it.
Is also known as Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed; it can only be redistributed or changed from one form to another.
2: What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics say?
It says that the entropy of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases.
3: Define Entropy (give an example).
Measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work. The amount of disorder in a system. Volcanic activity is an example.
4: What is an intermediate system?
Ecosystem must lie between a source of usable energy and a sink for degraded energy.
5.5- Biological Production and Biomass
1: What is biomass?
The total mass of organisms in a given area or volume.
2: Define the following:
* Biological Production: Capture of usable energy from environment to produce organic matter
* Gross Production: Increase in stored energy
* Net Production: Amount of newly acquired energy stored after energy was used
3: What are the 3 measures that are used for biomass and biological production?
Quantity of organic material, energy stored and carbon stored.
4: What is primary production- who carries this out?
The flow of energy through any ecosystem starts with the fixation of sunlight by plants and other autotrophic organisms. Is carried out by autotrophs.
5: What is secondary production- who is involved?
Is the conversion of raw materials to finished products. Heterotrophs are
involved.
6: Who are chemoautotrophs? Explain- where are they usually found?
Bacteria that obtain energy by the oxidation of electron donors in their environments. They are found deep-ocean vents and muds of marshes.
5.6- Energy Efficiency and Transfer Efficiency
1: What is energy efficiency?
Energy efficiency is the ratio of output to input. It's available energy.
2: How would energy efficiency look with a wolf and moose population? Explain.
How would energy efficiency look with a wolf and moose population, is highly energy efficient. Wolves store almost nothing.
3: What is food-chain or trophic level efficiency?
Food-chain or trophic level efficiency is a common ecological measure of energy efficiency. Which is the ratio of production of 1 trophic level to the production of the next-lower trophic level.
4: Generally, how much energy is lost to heat when being transferred between trophic levels?
Generally less than 1% of the heat is loss when being transferred between trophic levels.
5.7- Ecological Stability and Succession
1: What is ecological succession?
Ecological succession is the gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established.
2: Compare and contrast primary and secondary succession- give an example of each.
Primary succession is one of two types of biological and ecological succession of plant life, occurring in an environment in which new substrate devoid of vegetation and usually lacking soil, such as a lava flow or area left from retreated glacier, is deposited. Secondary succession is one of the two types of ecological succession of plant life. As opposed to the first, primary succession, secondary succession is a process started by an event that reduces an already established ecosystem to a smaller population of species.
3: Explain how succession would look in a Dune.
Extremely sandy. Dune grass shoots appears scattered on the slope.
4: Explain how succession would look in a Bog.
It's an open body of water with no surface inlets. They usually have small streams.
5: Explain how succession would look in an old-field.
Succession would look in an old-field is dry and plain with plain grasses and trees.
6: Explain how succession would look in a coral reef.
Succession would look in a coral reef, is colorful, and full of life.
5.9- How Species Change Succession
1: Explain facilitation in succession and where is it most common?
Facilitation in succession changes the local environment in ways that make it suitable for another species. It's most common in tropical rainforests.
2: Explain interference in succession and what it can lead to.
An interference in succession changes the local environment so it is unsuitable to another species. It could lead to death of patch of grass from disease or removal by fire.
3: What is chronic patchiness? When does this occur?
Chronic Patchiness is cases where no species interact through succession. It occurs in warm desserts.
Critical Thinking Issue: Should People Eat Lower on the Food Chain?
1:Why does the energy content decrease at each higher level of a food chain? What happens to the energy lost at each level?
10% of energy gets passed on, because the rest of it gets used by the previous animal.
2: Why it is appropriate to use mass to represent energy content?
Energy is represented by autotrophs.
3: Using the average of 21 kilojoules of energy to equal 1g of completely dried vegetation and assuming that wheat is 80% water, what is the energy content of the 333,000 kg of wheat shown in the pyramid? (show your work).
4: Make a list of environmental arguments for and against an entirely vegetarian diet for people. What might be the consequences for the United States agriculture if everyone in the country began to eat lower on the food chain?
5: How low do you eat on the food chain? Would you be willing to eat lower? Explain.
I could be a primary consumer, but I prefer to be a heterotroph. The reason is because my dad make a turkey burger taste like heaven.
Study Questions:
1: Farming has been described as managing land to keep it in an early stage of succession. What does this mean, and how is it achieved?
2: Keep track of the food you eat during one day and make a food chain linking yourself with the sources of those foods.
Determine the biomass (grams) and energy (kilocalories) you have eaten.
Using an average of 5Kcal/g, then using the information on food packaging or assuming that your net production is 10% efficient in terms of energy intake, how much additional energy might you have stored during the day? (What is your weight gain from the food you have eaten?)