Ecology Review Sheet
AP Biology
Exam will cover:
Chapter 50, 52, 53, 54 (up to slide with black bull)
Know all bold words and figures in these chapters.
1. What is ecology?
2. Compare abiotic to biotic components of ecosystems.
3. Define the following: organism, population, community, biosphere, biota
4. Identify and define the subfields of ecology.
5. What is meant by patchiness?
6. Contrast the terms ecology and environmentalism
7. What does the precautionary principle state in laymen’s terms?
8. What is a biogeographic realm and what do these realms describe? Who first
developed the idea of biogeographic realms?
9. Define dispersal.
10. What are the major factors that define a regions climate?
11. Compare macroclimate to microclimate.
12. Global climate patterns boil down to two factors, the sun and the position of the
Earth in space. Explain.
13. Make sure you can describe the GLOBAL climate patterns shown in Figure
50.10.
14. Make sure you can describe the REGIONAL, LOCAL, and SEASONAL
EFFECTS on climate.
15. Explain how large bodies of water moderate climate of nearby terrestrial
environment (Fig. 50.11).
16. Explain how mountain ranges moderate climate including rain shadows / deserts
(Fig. 50.12).
17. Explain seasonal turnover in lakes with with winter ice cover (Fig. 50.13).
18. What is a biome?
19. Identify the major aquatic biomes and know their properties.
20. Know both lake and marine zonation.
21. Make sure you know how to read a climograph (Fig. 50.18).
22. Identify the major terrestrial biomes shown in 50.19 and describe the properties
and location of each. Make sure you can explain why they are found where they
are found and the similar effect observed with increasing latitude and altitude.
23. Explain the term ecotone.
24. What is meant by the word “habitat”?
25. Read about Rachel Carlson (Fig. 50.4). Make sure you know about silent spring.
26. Explain what is meant by: energy flows through an ecosystem and chemicals are
cycled. Give an example of each.
27. By what means do organisms become so adapted to their environments and why
can these adaptations be dangerous in terms of a rapidly changing environment?
28. Describe the reason for the high primary productivity in the tropical rain forests.
29. Deforestation of the tropical forests is occurring at an alarming rate. Explain why
farming these regions is futile. Why does it matter that humans are destroying
these forests?
30. Describe the significance of the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt and why might its
disruption caused by the melting of polar ice caps via global warming cause
dramatic climate changes on Earth like an ice age?
31. Phytoplankton are the main producers of aquatic ecosystems. What types of
organisms belong to this group and why are they called phytoplankton? What
about the main producers on land?
32. What is an estuary and give an example. Describe why estuaries are one of the
most productive biomes on Earth. What is meant by “brackish water”?
33. Where do organisms living in the benthic, aphotic zone get there carbon source
and energy source if they are not part of a vent community?
34. What does the term “marine snow” mean?
35. Where do organisms at hydrothermal vent communities get their carbon and
energy?
36. What is coral and why does coral need to be in shallow, crystal clear waters with
a low influx of nutrients? What phylum does coral belong to?
37. Define population ecology. Why is it important to study populations?
38. Compare the exponential growth model to the logistic growth model and give
examples of each. Know why the rate is changing in each in terms of population
limiting factors and population size.
39. In terms of population, define density, dispersion (know the patterns and potential
reasons for each of the patterns like territoriality, etc…), immigration, emigration,
mark-recapture method. Describe figure 52.2.
40. Define demography and know what a life table is and what it tells us about a
population.
41. What is a cohort?
42. Describe the three general types of survivorship curves and give examples of
each.
43. Know how to read a reproductive table like the one shown in 52.2.
44. Compare semelparity (big-bang reproduction) to iteroparity (repeated
reproduction). What factors contribute to the evolution of one vs. the other?
45. Compare r-selection to K-selection. Which would encompass
semelparity/iteroparity? What type of environment would select for one vs the
other?
46. Define carrying capacity (K).
47. What determines the carrying capacity of a population?
48. Explain why you might hypothesize that no population fits either model exactly.
49. What did Thomas Malthus say about population growth?
50. Identify and describe all of the biotic and abiotic population limiting factors
discussed in class and give examples of each.
51. Compare density dependent to density-independent factors of population
regulation.
52. One biotic population limiting factor is space. We learned that organisms tend to
disperse in different patterns. Identify and describe these patterns and give real
life examples of each.
53. Explain boom-and-bust cycles observed in many predator-prey systems.
54. Read about the exponential growth of the human population.
55. Define ecological footprint and ecological capacity
56. Make sure you know how to read HUMAN age-structure pyramids and what
prediction they allow us to make.
57. Identify the characteristics of a community.
58. Compare interspecific to intraspecific competition.
59. In class we learned that interspecific competition, predation and symbiotic
relationships are all interactions between populations in communities. Define each
and give specific examples.
60. Identify the three types of symbiotic relationships and give real world examples of
each.
61. Define dominant species. What impact does a dominant species have on an
ecosystem / community?
62. Define a keystone species. Identify a real life example and explain why this is an
example.
63. Define Foundation species and give example.
64. Compare the bottom-up to the Top-down model of community ecology.
65. Define disturbance.
66. Describe the intermediate disturbance hypothesis and give an example.
67. Compare primary ecological succession to secondary succession. Make sure you
know all the details from pioneer organisms to climax community.
68. Describe the various ways that plants and animals protect themselves against
predation.
69. Predation has led to incredible examples of coevolution. Describe coevolution and
give a real world example.
70. Define the competitive exclusion principle and discuss the experiment that led to
this principle.
71. What is meant by an ecological niche. Describe the possible outcomes if two
species were to occupy the same ecological niche. What would happen if a
species were to go extinct leaving an open niche? How does this relate to mass
extinctions?
72. Compare batesian to mullerian mimcry. Give examples.
73. Describe the possible outcomes of two species sharing an almost identical
ecological niche. How is character displacement evidence of this?
74. Define aposematic coloration and crytptic coloration.
75. Identify the three groups of parasites discussed in class and give examples.
76. Describe herbivory.
77. Define disease. What is a pathogen?
78. How is species diversity measured?
79. Make sure you know all the trophic levels – the food chain.
80. Explain why food chains are too simple and food webs are more appropriate.
81. What do food webs show exactly?
82. Identify and describe the two hypothesis that describe why food chains are limited
in their size.
83. All of the organisms present in a food web will eventually die. Explain the
sequence of events that will follow their death in terms of the energy (high energy
electrons) and chemicals trapped in the carcasses. You should include scavengers,
detritovores, detritus, saptotrophs, fungi, bacteria and decomposers. Give real life
examples of all these trophic classes.
84. Why are decomposers absolutely critical to the ecosystem?
85. IMPORTANT: If you wanted to make the smallest possible food chain, what
trophic levels would you need to include? HINT: you only need two
86. Make sure you can draw a simple food web and that you know the direction of the
arrows. Also, you should be able to make prediction if there are disruption in a
food web like if the rats in figure 36.10 were to go locally extinct.
87. Explain the rule of 10. Explain why only 10% of the energy is passed from one
trophic level to the next. What has happened to the other 90%?
88. Define biomass.
89. Explain why meat is a luxury for human beings and why we all might be better
off if we were to rely more on plants and less on meat.
90. Compare primary production to secondary production.
91. How is production efficiency calculated for an individual organism?
92. Look in the book and compare the production efficiencies of birds and mammals
to fish and insects. Why the discrepancy?
93. Compare trophic efficiency, which is 10% (rule of 10) to production efficiency,
which varies from species to species.
94. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW EVERY BOLD WORD IN EVERY SECTION
ASSIGNED AS WELL AS THE TITLES OF EACH SECTION AND
FIGURES/TABLES IN EACH SECTION.