AP Bio Exam Review

Ecology Unit
Ecology: the scientific study of the interactions between
organisms and the environment

• The ecological study of species involves biotic

and abiotic influences.
– Biotic = living (organisms)
– Abiotic = nonliving (temp, water, salinity, sunlight,
soil)
 Heirarchy

• Organisms
• Population: group of individuals of same
species living in a particular geographic
area
• Community: all the organisms of all the
species that inhabit a particular area
• Ecosystem: all the abiotic factors +
community of species in a certain area
• Biosphere: global ecosystem
 Desert Temperate grassland Tropical forest

30

Temperate
broadleaf
15 forest

Coniferous
forest
0
Arctic and
alpine
tundra
–15
100 200 300 400
Annual mean precipitation (cm)
 Learning is experience-based modification of
behavior
• Learning ranges from simple behavioral
changes to complex problem solving
– Learning: a change in behavior
resulting from experience
– Social learning involves
changes in behavior that result
from the observation and
imitation of others

Vervet alarm call

 Innate behavior is developmentally fixed
• Unlearned behavior
• Environmental indifference - performed the
same way by all members of a species

• Fixed action patterns (FAPs): innate

behaviors that exhibit unchangeable
sequences; carried to completion
• Triggered by sign stimulus

• Ensures that activities essential to survival

are performed correctly without practice
 Directed Movements
• Kinesis: simple change in activity or turning rate in response to a
stimulus

Kinesis increases the chance that a sow bug will encounter and stay
in a moist environment.

• Taxis: automatic movement, oriented movement +/- from

stimulus; i.e. Phototaxis, chemotaxis, and geotaxis.

Positive rheotaxis keeps trout facing into the current, the direction
from which most food comes.
 Types of Learning
1. Habituation: loss of responsiveness to
stimuli that convey little or no
information
– Simple form of learning
2. Imprinting: learning + innate
components
– Limited to sensitive period in
life, generally irreversible
– ie. Lorenz’ imprinting in greylag
geese
 Types of Learning
3. Associative learning: ability to associate one
stimulus with another
– Also called classical conditioning
– Fruit fly (drosophila): trained to respond to odor +
shock
 Types of Learning
Operant conditioning: another type of
associative learning
– Trial-and-error learning
– Associate its own behavior with reward or
punishment
 Types of Learning
4. Cognition: the ability of an animal’s nervous
system to:
– Perceive, store, process, and use information
gathered by sensory receptors
– Problem-solving behavior relies on cognition
 Territorial Behavior
• Territorial behavior parcels space and resources
– Animals exhibiting this behavior mark and defend their
territories
 Patterns of
Dispersal:
Clumped. For many animals, such as these wolves,

1. Clumped – most common; near

living in groups increases the effectiveness of hunting,
spreads the work of protecting and caring for young,
and helps exclude other individuals from their territory.

required resource
2. Uniform – usually antagonistic
interactions
Uniform. Birds nesting on small islands, such as these
king penguins on South Georgia Island in the South
3. Random – not common in
nature
Atlantic Ocean, often exhibit uniform spacing, maintained
by aggressive interactions between neighbors.

Random. Dandelions grow from windblown seeds that

land at random and later germinate.
 Demography: the study of vital statistics that
affect population size

• Additions occur through birth, and subtractions occur

through death.
• A life table is an age-specific summary of the survival
pattern of a population.
• A graphical way of representing the data is a
survivorship curve.
– This is a plot of the number of individuals in a cohort
still alive at each age.
Survivorship Curves:
• Type I curve: low death rate early in life (humans)
• Type II curve: constant death rate over lifespan (squirrels)
• Type III curve: high death rate early in life (oysters)
• Zero population growth: Birth = Death
• Exponential population growth: ideal
conditions, population grows rapidly

2,000
dN
dt = 1.0N
Population size (N)

1,500
dN
dt = 0.5N

1,000

500

0
0 5 10 15
Number of generations
• Unlimited resources are rare
• Logistic model: incorporates carrying capacity (K)
– K = maximum stable population which can be
sustained by environment

• dN/dt = rmax((K-N)/K)
• S-shaped curve
• K-selection: pop. close to carrying capacity
• r-selection: maximize reproductive success

K-selection r-selection
Live around K Exponential growth
High prenatal care Little or no care
Low birth numbers High birth numbers
Good survival of young Poor survival of young
Density-dependent Density independent
ie. Humans ie. cockroaches
 Factors that limit population growth:
• Density-Dependent factors: population matters
– i.e. Predation, disease, competition, territoriality,
waste accumulation
• Density-Independent factors: population not a factor
– i.e. Natural disasters: fire, flood, weather
Age-Structure Diagrams
 Interspecific interactions
• Can be positive (+), negative (-) or neutral (0)
• Includes competition, predation, and symbiosis
• Interspecific competition for resources can
occur when resources are in short supply
• Species interaction is -/-
• Competitive exclusion principle: Two species
which cannot coexist in a community if their
niches are identical.
– The one with the slight reproductive advantage will
eliminate the other
Ecological niche: the sum total of an organism’s use
of abiotic/biotic resources in the environment

• Fundamental niche = niche potentially occupied

by the species
• Realized niche = portion of fundamental niche
the species actually occupies
High tide High tide
Chthamalus
Chthamalus
Balanus realized niche
Chthamalus
Balanus fundamental niche
realized niche
Ocean Low tide Ocean Low tide
 Predation (+/-)
Defensive adaptations include:
– Cryptic coloration – camouflaged by coloring
– Aposematic or warning coloration – bright color of
poisonous animals
– Batesian mimicry – harmless species mimic color
of harmful species
– Mullerian mimicry – 2 bad-tasting species
resemble each other; both to be avoided
– Herbivory – plants avoid this by chemical toxins,
spines, & thorns
 Community Structure
Species diversity = species richness (the number
of different species they contain), and the
relative abundance of each species.
• Dominant species: has the highest biomass or
is the most abundant in the community
• Keystone species: exert control on community
structure by their important ecological niches
– Ex: loss of sea otter  increase sea urchins,
destruction of kelp forests
 Disturbances influences species diversity and
composition
• A disturbance changes a community by
removing organisms or changing resource
availability (fire, drought, flood, storm, human
activity)

• Ecological succession: transitions in species

composition in a certain area over ecological
time
Primary Succession
• Plants & animals invade where soil
has not yet formed
– Ex. colonization of volcanic island or
glacier
 Secondary Succession
• Occurs when existing community is cleared by
a disturbance that leaves soil intact
– Ex. abandoned farm, forest fire

Soon after fire. As this photo taken soon after the fire One year after fire. This photo of the same general area
shows, the burn left a patchy landscape. Note the taken the following year indicates how rapidly the com-
unburned trees in the distance. munity began to recover. A variety of herbaceous plants,
different from those in the former forest, cover the ground.
 Ecosystems
Ecosystem = sum of all the organisms living
within its boundaries (biotic community) +
abiotic factors with which they interact

Involves two unique processes:

1. Energy flow
2. Chemical cycling
 Tertiary
consumers

Microorganisms
and other
detritivores Secondary
consumers

Detritus Primary consumers

Primary producers

Heat
Key

Chemical cycling Sun

Energy flow
 Trophic Structures
• The trophic structure of a community is
determined by the feeding relationships
between organisms.
• Trophic levels = links in the trophic structure

• The transfer of food energy from plants 

herbivores  carnivores  decomposers is
called the food chain.
• Two or more food chains
linked together are called
food webs.
• A given species may
weave into the web at
more than one trophic
level.
 Primary Production
• Total primary production is known as gross
primary production (GPP).
– This is the amount of light energy that is
converted into chemical energy.
• The net primary production (NPP) is equal to
gross primary production minus the energy used
by the primary producers for respiration (R):
– NPP = GPP – R
• NPP = storage of chemical energy available to
consumers in an ecosystem
 Net primary production of different ecosystems
Open ocean 65.0 125 24.4
Continental shelf 5.2 360 5.6
Estuary 0.3 1,500 1.2
Algal beds and reefs 0.1 2,500 0.9
Upwelling zones 0.1 500 0.1
Extreme desert, rock, sand, ice 4.7 3.0 0.04
Desert and semidesert scrub 3.5 90 0.9
Tropical rain forest 3.3 2,200 22
Savanna 2.9 900 7.9
Cultivated land 2.7 600 9.1
Boreal forest (taiga) 2.4 800 9.6
Temperate grassland 1.8 600 5.4
Woodland and shrubland 1.7 700 3.5
Tundra 1.6 140 0.6
Tropical seasonal forest 1.5 1,600 7.1
Temperate deciduous forest 1.3 1,200 4.9
Temperate evergreen forest 1.0 1,300 3.8
Swamp and marsh 0.4 2,000 2.3
Lake and stream 0.4 250 0.3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 0 5 10 15 20 25
Key Percentage of Earth’s Average net primary Percentage of Earth’s net
surface area production (g/m2/yr) primary production
Marine
Terrestrial
Freshwater (on continents)
• Primary production affected by:
– Light availability (↑ depth, ↓ photosynthesis)
– Nutrient availability (N, P in marine env.)
• Key factors controlling primary production:
– Temperature & moisture

• A nutrient-rich lake that supports algae growth

is eutrophic.
Energy transfer between trophic levels is typically
only 10% efficient

• Production efficiency:
only fraction of E stored
in food
Plant material
• Energy used in eaten by caterpillar

respiration is lost as heat 200 J

• Energy flows (not cycle!)

67 J
within ecosystems
Cellular
100 J respiration
Feces
33 J

Growth (new biomass)

 10% transfer of
Tertiary 10 J
consumers energy from one
level to next
Secondary
100 J
consumers

Primary
1,000 J
consumers

Primary
producers 10,000 J

1,000,000 J of sunlight
 Pyramids of energy or biomass or numbers
gives insight to food chains

• Loss of energy
limits # of top-level
carnivores
Pyramid of Numbers
• Most food webs
only have 4 or 5
trophic levels

Pyramid of Biomass
 Matter Cycles in Ecosystem
• Biogeochemical cycles: nutrient cycles that
contain both biotic and abiotic components
• organic  inorganic parts of an ecosystem
• Nutrient Cycles: water, carbon, nitrogen,
phosphprus
 Carbon Cycle

CO2 in atmosphere • CO2 removed by

Photosynthesis
photosynthesis,
Cellular added by burning
respiration
fossil fuels

Burning of
fossil fuels
and wood Higher-level
Primary consumers
consumers
Carbon compounds Detritus
in water

Decomposition
 Nitrogen Cycle
• Nitrogen fixation:
N2 in atmosphere
– N2  plants by bacteria

• Nitrification:
– ammonium  nitrite 
Assimilation
Denitrifying
nitrate
– bacteria
Nitrogen-fixing
NO3 – Absorbed by plants
bacteria in root Decomposers
nodules of legumes Nitrifying
Ammonification bacteria
Nitrification
NH3 NH4+ NO2– • Denitrification:
Nitrogen-fixing Nitrifying
soil bacteria bacteria – Release N to atmosphere
 Acid Precipitation
• Acid precipitation: rain, snow, or fog with a pH less
than 5.6
• Caused by burning of wood & fossil fuels
– Sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides released
– React with water in the atmosphere to produce
sulfuric and nitric acids
• These acids fall back to earth as acid
precipitation, and can damage ecosystems
greatly.
• The acids can kill plants, and can kill aquatic
organisms by changing the pH of the soil and
water.
Biological Magnification

• Toxins become more

concentrated in
Herring successive trophic levels
gull eggs
of a food web
Concentration of PCBs

124 ppm

4.83 ppm • Toxins can’t be broken

Lake trout

Smelt down & magnify in

1.04 ppm
concentration up the food
chain
• Problem: mercury in fish

Zooplankton Phytoplankton
0.123 ppm 0.025 ppm
 Greenhouse Effect
– Greenhouse Effect: absorption of heat the Earth
experiences due to certain greenhouse gases
• CO2 and water vapor causes the Earth to retain
some of the infrared radiation from the sun that
would ordinarily escape the atmosphere
– The Earth needs this heat, but too much could be
disastrous.
 Rising atmospheric CO2
– Since the Industrial Revolution, the concentration
of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased greatly
as a result of burning fossil fuels.
 Global Warming
• Scientists continue to construct models to predict
how increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere
will affect Earth.
• Several studies predict a doubling of CO2 in the
atmosphere will cause a 2º C increase in the
average temperature of Earth.
• Rising temperatures could cause polar ice cap
melting, which could flood coastal areas.
– It is important that humans attempt to stabilize
their use of fossil fuels.
 Human activities are depleting the
atmospheric ozone
• Life on earth is protected from the damaging affects of
ultraviolet radiation (UV) by a layer of O3,
or ozone.
• Chlorine-containing compounds erode the ozone layer
 The four major threats to biodiversity:

1. Habitat destruction
– Human alteration of habitat is the single
greatest cause of habitat destruction.
2. Introduced species: invasive/nonnative/exotic
species
3. Overexploitation: harvest wild plants/animals
4. Food chain disruption: extinction of keystone
species