Ecology
Ecology as a scientific study
Levels of ecology
- Organismal ecology: adaptation to the environment
- Population ecology: what keeps populations steady?
- Community ecology: Interspecific interactions
- Ecosystem ecology: factors that determine biomes
Organismal eology
- What are some of the abiotic factors that shape our ecosystems?
- What adaptations do organisms have to these factors?
- Anatomical adaptations
- Physiological adaptations
- Behavioral adaptations
Population ecology
- Measures of a population
- Density
- Dispersion
- Growth
- Carrying capacity!
- Population regulation
- Density-dependent factors
- density-independent factors
- Cyclic patterns
- Two patterns: Opportunistic vs. Equilibrial
- # offspring per mating
- size of offspring
- # of reproductive events
- time in life of first reproduction
- age structure of population
- life span
- maturation time
- amount of parental care
- Examples
Community Ecology
Interaction between species
- Competition
- competitive exclusion
- resource partitioning
- biological niche concept
- Predation
- Predator adaptations
- Prey adaptations
- The importance of predation in communities
- Symbiosis
- Parasitism
- Commensalism
- Mutualism
Changing communities
- Succession
- Disturbances
- How much disturbance is good?
Ecosystems ecology
- Energy flow
- Feeding
(trophic) relationships
- Productivity
- Geochemical cycling in ecosystems
- Tropical
forest
- Savanna
- Desert
- Chaparral
- Temperate Grassland
- Temperate deciduous forest
- Coniferous forest
- Tundra
- Rivers and streams
- Ponds and lakes
- Open ocean
- Estuaries
- Intertidal zone
- Benthic zone
- Hydrothermal vent communities
Resource links
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss5/biome/index.html