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General Biology Chapter 38 Assignment

A community is a group of interacting populations that inhabit the same region, while an ecosystem includes the community plus the nonliving environment. Finch species in the Galapagos can coexist because they have different beak sizes and diets, occupying different ecological niches. Adaptations like rapid growth, hooks, keen eyesight, and camouflage help organisms compete, live inside others, find food, and avoid predation, contributing to reproductive fitness. Mimicry works only if the mimicking species is less abundant, otherwise predators would not be fooled. In a closed ecosystem without light or gas exchange, organic material would be converted to inorganic substances over time as all organisms died off, though total nutrients would remain

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147 views3 pages

General Biology Chapter 38 Assignment

A community is a group of interacting populations that inhabit the same region, while an ecosystem includes the community plus the nonliving environment. Finch species in the Galapagos can coexist because they have different beak sizes and diets, occupying different ecological niches. Adaptations like rapid growth, hooks, keen eyesight, and camouflage help organisms compete, live inside others, find food, and avoid predation, contributing to reproductive fitness. Mimicry works only if the mimicking species is less abundant, otherwise predators would not be fooled. In a closed ecosystem without light or gas exchange, organic material would be converted to inorganic substances over time as all organisms died off, though total nutrients would remain

Uploaded by

Mia moore
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter 38 Assignment:

Communities and Ecosystems

1. How does a community differ from an ecosystem?


A community is a group of interacting populations that inhabit the same region. An
ecosystem includes a community plus the nonliving environment within a defined area.

2. Three Galapagos finch species have different beak sizes and specialize in
different types of food. Explain how these three species can share the same
habitat without driving each other to extinction.

Since the finches have different diets, they occupy different niches. Competition is
therefore unlikely between these finch species.

3. List examples of adaptations that enable an organism to compete with


other species, live inside another species, find food, and avoid herbivory or
predation. How does each adaptation contribute to the organism’s
reproductive fitness?
An example of an adaptation that enables an organism to compete is the rapid growth of a
seedling, which may shade out others as it acquires light energy. More photosynthesis
means more energy for reproduction. An adaptation that enables an organism to live
inside another is the head of a tapeworm, which has hooks that keep the worm from being
flushed out of an animal’s digestive tract. A worm with such hooks acquires more food
than one without, which means more energy is available for reproduction. An example of
an adaptation that helps an animal find food is an eagle’s keen eyesight. An eagle that can
spot small animals acquires more food than one with poor eyesight. An example of an
adaptation that helps an organism avoid predation is camouflage. An animal that can
avoid being eaten (at least before reproductive age) has a chance at reproductive success.

4. In an example of mimicry, a harmless jumping spider physically resembles


an aggressive species of ant. Explain why this type of mimicry can exist
only if the spiders are less abundant than the ants.

If a harmless species were more abundant than the noxious one it is mimicking, predators
would not be fooled. Mimicry works because a predator learns by experience whether or
not a species is harmful. If the harmless species is more abundant, the predator will learn
that the majority of its encounters with similar-looking creatures are not painful.

5. Imagine that you could build a covered enclosure around a small


ecosystem, blocking out all light and preventing gas exchange with the
environment. How would the total amount of organic material, available
energy, and nutrients in the ecosystem change over time?

Without light, most or all primary production would cease(some autotrophs do not use
light energy to produce food, but most do). With no energy entering the ecosystem,
producers would soon die. Without food, herbivores would also die, followed by
consumers. Decomposers would break down the dead bodies, converting organic matter
into CO2 and H2O and releasing heat. After the last decomposer died, all of the energy in
the ecosystem would have been released as heat and all of the organic material would
have been converted into CO2,H2O, and other inorganic substances. However, the total
amount of nutrients in the ecosystem would not have changed throughout this process.
All of the phosphorus that was once in producers, consumers, and decomposers would
end in the soil. Nitrogen and carbon would be distributed between the atmosphere and the
soil.
6. Use the second law of thermodynamics and a pyramid of energy to explain
why most food chains have four or fewer levels.

The second law of thermodynamics says that energy is lost as heat every time it is
converted from one form to another. As a result, only a small proportion of the energy
available at one level of a food chain is available to be transferred to the next level. These
energy constraints keep most food chains limited to four or fewer levels.
7. In a eutrophic lake, algae are abundant and dissolved oxygen levels are
low. Predict how the pyramid of energy might appear for an ecosystem
under these conditions.

When nutrient levels are unusually high in a lake, algae have abundant resources. Their
populations grow, leading to a high amount of biomass at the bottom of the energy
pyramid. However, eutrophic lakes have a low dissolved oxygen level, which kills many
anima ls. Because the amount of energy moving to primary, secondary, and tertiary
consumers is limited, the energy pyramid would have a broader base than usual, with
smaller than usual rectangles on top.

8. Use the carbon cycle to trace a hypothetical pat of a carbon atom from
Abraham Lincoln’s body into your own.
Abraham Lincoln may have exhaled a carbon atom as CO2. That gas may have circulated
in the atmosphere for a long time, until a plant absorbed the carbon atom and
incorporated it into its own tissues. The carbon atom may have circulated within a food
web, including animals and decomposers, until it was finally absorbed as CO2 and
incorporated into the tissues of a plant that I ate.

9. Suppose a friend says, “I hate germs, I wish we could kill all bacteria!” What
would happen if your friend didn’t have bacteria in her body? What would
happen to nutrient cycles without bacteria?

Without her bacterial companions, your friend would be much more vulnerable to
infection, and she would lose the ability to digest some components of her food. Nutrient
cycles would collapse without bacteria, which are important decomposers and autotrophs.
In addition, only bacteria and archaea can fix nitrogen, so ecosystems would eventually
collapse in their absence.
10.Review the structures of organic molecules that we learned in chapter 2.
How do these molecules connect the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus
cycles?

Carbon is part of all organic molecules, while nitrogen Occurs in proteins and nucleic
acids, and phosphorus occurs in nucleic acids, ATP, and phospholipids. Molecules that
contain combinations of C, N, and/or P represent intersections of the nutrient cycles.

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