ENVIRON 201 Midterm: Lecture 3 Study Guide
18 Feb 2018
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Lecture 3: ecosystem ecology (chapter 5 and some of 4: ecology: the study of the relationships between organisms and their environment, both living and non-living. Hierarchal levels: tropic levels: rank in feeding hierarchy of a food chain. Organisms at higher trophic levels consume those at lower trophic levels: keystone species: species that has strong impact far out of proportion to its abundance. Keep the environment in check/regulate the balance of the environment; strong indicator of a pristine, healthy environment; remove the keystone, the ark will collapse; removal of a keystone species will have major consequences. Ants are a primary consumers (lower trophic level than human), same 10% rule of energy also applies to biomass. Closer you are to primary consumer, the more energy in your trophic level: what does the concept, energy flows, matter cycles mean, energy from the sun cycles through the ecosystem.
