Description and examples of biological study - Biosphere, ecosystems, populations, organisms, and cells.

Overview, history, and levels of living systems.

Definition and complexity theory. Feeback between organism and environment. Need to study system as a whole with environmental influences. "Natural" state and man-made influences to our biosphere.

Two-way relationship between the individual and the environment. Examples: Microbes and plants, nitrogen fixation, the carbon cycle, and fossil fuel.

Study of biosphere as a network of genes. Example: Ocean and microbial life.

Collective photosynthesis. Types and habitats of primary photosynthesizers. Definitions and examples: Biomass, gross primary productivity, respiration rate, net primary productivity, mean residence time, and fractional turnover.

Net primary productive and turnover time in different land and marine ecosystems.

Flow of energy through an organism within the food web. Comparisons of exploitation, assimilation, and production efficiencies of different organisms Connection and relationship between grazing, microbial, and detrivore food webs.

Open ocean versus tropical forest ecosystems. Average ecological efficiency and number of tropic levels in each ecosystem.

Light, water, temperature correlate direct to productivity in terrestrial ecosystems.

Conversion to organic forms, recycling, minerals and rocks. Comparison of tropical rain forests and temperate forests in terms of biomass and soil nutrient.

Light, temperature, and nutrients as functions of water depth. Light, water, and nutrients affect marine productivity. Nutrients are most dense in the bottom due to recycling.

Need to bring up nutrients from the bottom to the light at the top in order to utilize the nutrients. Thermocline in the lake and seasonal nutrient mixing.

Definition and explanation of four types of mixing: Episodic mixing, costal upwelling, equatorial upwelling, and oceanic "conveyer belt".

"Law of minimum." Growth of plants can be limited by nutrients in lowest supply relative to requirements. Example: Carbon/Nitrogen/Phosphorus ratio.

Interconnected biogeochemical cycles. Definition of related terms. Flux, steady state and non-steady state effects. Solar energy as the primary source that drives the various cycles.

Cycle participants and length. Solar and geothermal energies as input. Cycle includes various rocks and soils.

Reservoirs, fluxes, and balances within the cycle. Residence time of water in reservoirs.

Sedimentary cycle without atmospheric component. One way flow influenced by human activities. Reservoirs, fluxes, balances, and participants of the cycle.

Transformations between various nitrogenous components using redox chemistry-nitrification, denitrification, nitrogen fixation, and ammonification. Reservoirs, fluxes, imbalanced cycle, and human influences.

Reservoirs, fluxes, and imbalances that result in carbon dioxide annual increase in the atmosphere.

Definition, characteristics, and effects on the environment.

Definition and implications of Darwinian fitness, Adaptation, and Competition. Possible relationships between two organisms with respect to fitness.

Intraspecific and interspecific competition.

Definition, niche overlap, and competition.

Gause's experiment of growing competing organisms in simple, controlled environment. Developed logistic equations to predict growth of one population taken into consideration size of the other population.

Case study of introduction of zebra mussel as an invasive species. Case study on growth of two species of barnacles.

Definition, scale, and studies. Earth as a biosphere.

Environment and conditions of deep sea volcano for chemosynthetic bacteria.

Changes in physical characteristics that lead to competitive co-existence. Example: Beak depth of species on the same island.

Growth, changes, and immigration of species inhabiting different islands.

Predation as a force of evolution. Prey and predator logistic equations that are dependent on each other's densities, creating an oscillatory system. Example: Snowshoe hare and cats; prey and predator mites.

John Wart's experiment that demonstrated that predation affects community structure within a niche. Predators and prey that drive evolution of both populations. Example: Industrial melanism.

Definition and calculation for primary productivity, gross and net productivity, mean residence time, and fractional turnover.

Definition and calculation for exploitation, assimilation, and production efficiencies at each trophic level and overall ecological efficiency.

Use characteristics and genes expressed in two ecotypes to determine their environment in the water.

Solution (PDF) Pages 2 to 3

Productivities and efficiencies in a food web. Determine the food source that gives the highest ecological efficiency.

Solution (PDF) Pages 3 to 5

Components and energy transfer of a food web involving plants, herbivores, and carnivores. Example of estimated transfers and efficiencies.

Solution (PDF) Pages 3 to 4

Example demonstrating predator-prey relationship as well as food source and consumption. Comparison of top-down and bottom-up models.

Solution (PDF)

Efficiencies and energy transfers in a food web. Changes in parameters created by addition of new organisms.

Solution (PDF)

Niche for individual species and relationships between two species.