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Unit 3 Ecology Guided Reading Questions

Course

Ecology And Evolution (BIOL 201)

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Academic year: 2021/2022
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Unit 3: Organisms in the Environment

BIOL 201 -Ecology Guided Reading Questions – Will not be turned in for credit.

Instructions:

  • SimUtext has embedded questions as you read and activities. These help you engage with the reading and verify your understanding. Do these questions. They are not graded.
  • The purpose of Guided Reading Questions is to help you focus on the key pieces of the assigned reading.
  • Remember that you can download a “print” version of SimUText for reference outside of the computer application. Visit this site to learn more.
  • This document will not be turned in for credit. It’s just an optional tool to help with note taking.

Lesson 21 – Intro to Ecology

Reading: Read the SimUText Assignment Lesson 21: Introduction to Ecology = Ecosystem Ecology, Section 5, pages 1-12.

Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your notes.

*Do the SimUText embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge. If you get one wrong, don’t click around to “guess”. Re-read the question and try again!

  • Keep a list of vocabulary words as you encounter them.
  • What is an ecological footprint? What is biocapacity? Why has the ecological footprint grown so rapidly in the last 50 years?
  • Are ecological footprints the same between countries? Why or why not? Give examples.
  • What are ecosystem services? Give examples along with definitions.
  • What is Net Primary Production? Explain it in basic terms, avoid too much biology jargon. Do humans use a lot or a little bit of the global Net Primary Production relative to other species? Explain.
  • Why is it hard to protect ecosystem services?
  • Briefly, what is the tragedy of the commons? What roles does regulation, true cooperation, and sustainability have in protecting common goods?

Lesson 22 Global Natural History

Reading: Read the SimUText Assignment Lesson 3: Biogeography (Sec 4: 1-12); Ecosystem Ecology (Sec 1: 8-11, Sec 2: 1-21)

Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your notes.

*Do the embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge.

  • Keep a list of vocabulary words as you encounter them.

Biogeography (Sec 4: 1-12);

  • Why is solar radiation more intense at the equator than at the poles? Draw a picture to support your explanation. Make sure it’s labeled.
  • What contributes to seasonality (season) on the Earth? Why is it “winter” in North Carolina in December?
  • What factors contribute to air circulation patterns like Hadley cells?
  • Why do we see tropical rainforests at the equator? Is this just because of solar input or other factors, too?
  • SKIM: Coriolis effect and wind patterns (page 6) – no questions.
  • Read about the biomes but do not memorize their individual features. In general, what makes biomes different from one another? In what ways are they similar? Which biomes do you find most interesting and why?
  • Look at the map on “page” 8. Why do we see tundras to the north and rainforests at the equator?
  • How does understanding biomes help biologists set priorities for which areas to protect first?

Ecosystem Ecology (Sec 1: 8-11)

Start at “page 8”

  • What are ecosystems?
  • What is the relationship between autotrophs, photosynthesis, gross primary production (GPP), net primary production (NPP) and respiration? When you look at a living tree which of these processes do you see with your eyes? If you hold a log in your hand, it is a result of which processes?
  • Which of the following do heterotrophs (animals): GPP, NPP, Ra? Explain your answer. Draw a diagram if necessary.

(Sec 2: 1-21)

  • What is biomass? What are you measuring over time?
  • What does the equation on “page” 2 tell you? Explain in words.
  • What are your observations from the simulation on page 3?
  • Is measuring above ground biomass alone an accurate measure of net primary production? Why or why not?
  • In your own words, what is gross primary production? Give an example.
  • What is respiration? And how does it depend on GPP?
  • Why do ecologists measure the flux (change) of carbon dioxide in a forest?
  • What is Net Ecosystem Production and how does it differ from NPP?
  • What is a plant doing at night? How do you know from the graph on page 9?
  • Why would a forest have fluctuation in GPP and Re over the course of a year? Think back to what you learned related to seasonality.
  • Why does one half of global NPP occur in oceans?
  • Explain the Light and Dark bottle experiment. Drawing a picture or a graph will be helpful.
  • Give a biological explanation for the results.

Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your notes.

**- Do the embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge.*

Sec 1: 1-

How does the hypoxic deadzone form in the Gulf of Mexico. Explain the process in detail in your own words!

Why do deadzones impact commercial fisheries (like shrimp harvesting)?

What determines the size and duration of a dead zone?

Why are nutrients (like nitrogen, phosphorus and others) so important for organisms? Do plants and animals differ in their nutrient needs? Why or why not?

In general, what are the components of a nutrient cycle? Do nutrients change form as they cycle through an ecosystem? Explain.

Not required reading but helpful: Section 1, page 20 has a useful diagram that shows “nutrients cycle, but energy flows”. When you measure biomass, are you measuring GPP or NPP?

Sec 2: 1-16;

What does it mean that the nitrogen cycle is biologically mediated?

What are the five main pools of the nitrogen cycle and where are they found. Draw your own diagram on a separate (large!) piece of paper. Try not to copy/paste definition/explanations but use your own words

What are eight main fluxes of nitrogen? Add them to your diagram.

Why might the words “decomposition” and “mineralization” be used interchangeably? Is this accurate?

What role does leaf litter quality play in the nitrogen cycle?

The “Plant uptake” flux shows an arrow from the soil to the plants leaves. Is this an accurate depiction of what’s happening to nitrogen? Why or why not?

On page “5” there is a ‘check you understanding’ activity. List here one or two clarifying questions you want to ask of a peer instructor or on Piazza.

What is a disturbance to an ecosystem and how might it affect/impact nitrogen cycling?

What was the Hubbard Brooks experiment and what did it find?Drawing a diagram to explain the experiment will help.

Was the movement of nitrogen itself the only thing affected in the disturbed plots of the Hubbard Brooks experiment? Was anything unaffected by the disturbance?

Page 10 – skim read about acid rain. How does the nitrogen cycle contribute to acid rain?

How does nitrogen cycling in aquatic systems differ from terrestrial systems?

How does a nitrogen atom get from a forest into a stream?

How is the experience of a nitrogen atom in a stream different from that of nitrogen in a lake?

Given a starting point in the nitrogen cycle, can you trace (or describe) all of the possible pathways through pools with the appropriate fluxes?

Lesson 26 – Physiological Ecology -- Photosynthesis

Physiological Ecology -- Photosynthesis

Reading: Physiological Ecology (Sec 1: SKIM (or skip) then read Sec 4: 1-8, 15-25 ) –skim the part about water potential (those pages are not required, but they are interesting!)

Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your notes.

*Do the embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge.

Sec 4: 1-

  • What is metabolism in your own words?
  • What does an organism require (at minimum) to survive, grow and reproduce?
  • What is fixation, specifically carbon fixation? Be able to explain in words, not just a chemical equation.
  • Where does carbon fixation take place?
  • What does it mean that “Sugar is a battery”?
  • What is cellular respiration? How does it relate to metabolism?
  • Describe photosynthesis (gross primary production) in your own words. Explain terminology. Make it clear what the inputs and outputs of photosynthesis are.
  • What is the light reaction? What is the light-independent (aka dark) reaction? Can the light independent reaction occur if the plant is in the dark?
  • Where does the name C3 photosynthesis come from?
  • What is photorespiration, how is it different from cellular respiration? How is it different from photosynthesis? Is photorespiration a problem for the plant? If so, how?
  • What do you learn from doing the activity on “page” 5? What’s the main take-away for you? Do you have any questions about the pages you’ve read so far for a peer instructor?
  • What is C4 photosynthesis? How does it different from C3? Why do different plants have different ways to fix carbon?
  • What do you learn from the activity on Page 7?

SKIP WATER POTENTIAL (unless you’re interested, then by all means, read!)

Sec 4: 16-

  • Start on page 16:

  • What are stomata? Why do they matter for plants? How do plant control them and why?

  • Skim page 17 about xylem. What is it?

  • What happened when a selective withdrawal system was incorporated into the dam?

  • Are adaptation and acclimation both limited? Explain.

  • Does the rate (how quickly or slowly) an organism adapts matter? Explain.

  • Do acclimation experiments in the lab reflect what organisms may experience outside the lab? Explain.

  • What does it mean for acclimation to be irreversible? Give examples.

  • use the section summary to verify your understanding of the reading in this section. What lingering questions do you have to ask of your peer instructor or TA or on Piazza?

Lesson 28 – Life History

Reading: Life History (Sec 1: optional; Sec 2: 1-16; Sec 3: 1-25)

Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your notes.

*Do the embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge.

Sec 2: 1-

  • What would you expect to be the outcome of a successful life history strategy?
  • Why do ecologists track population size over time?
  • What are demographics? What is birth rate? Death rate?
  • How do you represent population change over time mathematically? When is a population growing, shrinking or not changing?
  • How do you estimate growth rate for a population?
  • What did you observe from doing this calculation for the dolphins?
  • How does the barnacle population compare to the dolphin population?
  • What does the sentence “different life history strategies can succeed in the same environment” mean?
  • What is a population’s age structure?
  • What observations can you make from comparing age structures for barnacles and dolphins?
  • Why do barnacles and dolphins differ in the number of offspring they produce?
  • How can age structures be used to predict population size?
  • What do you learn about the age structure of the human population in France?
  • How does the age structure in France compare to India?
  • Do either India or France have a stable (not changing) population size? If so, how can you tell from their age structure?
  • What can you infer about “r” for a population based on its age structure?

Sec 3: 1-

  • What is a life table?

  • What is a cohort? What is a dynamic vs static life table?

  • What do you learn from constructing a life table for a population in France?

  • Document and explain all the variable in a life table

  • What is survivorship and how do you calculate it?

  • What are the three kinds of survivorship curves we would expect to see for species?

  • How are survivorship curves used?

Read pages 12- 18 (they will be included on exam 3)

  • What is fecundity? How is it measured?
  • How do you calculate the net reproductive rate?
  • Generation time: what is it, how is it calculated?
  • How does survivorship and generation time help us determine if a population is growing or not?

Page 19: How can the information in a life table be used to make conservation decisions?

Lesson 29 – Population Growth Part I

Read: Population Growth (Sec 1: 1-14, Sec 2: 1-13)

  • What is a population?
  • Why do biologists need to know how they change through time?
  • What does it mean that a population is “dynamic”?
  • What is the finite rate of increase (lambda)? What does the value tell you about how the population is changing through time?
  • In general, when would you use the geometric population growth model? What are the assumptions of the mathematical equation (model)?
  • When would you apply the geometric growth model?
  • What does it mean for a generation NOT to overlap?
  • What is the intrinsic population growth rate per capita?
  • When would a population experience exponential growth?
  • Knowing a starting population size and “r” can you calculate population size in the future? How?
  • What affects the shape of an exponentially growing population’s growth curve?
  • Can populations indefinitely grow exponentially? Why or why not?

Lesson 30: Population Growth Part II – Logistic Growth

Read: Population Growth (Sec 3:1-15)

  • What limits how a population will grow?
  • What is carrying capacity?
  • What regulates a population? Give abiotic and biotic examples
  • What are density-dependent factors for a population? Give examples
  • What are density-independent factors? Give examples.
  • What happens when intraspecific competition is high in a population?
  • What equation accounts for carrying capacity?
  • What happens to percapita growth rate when a population reaches K? Are individuals still being born into the population at this point? Explain.
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Unit 3 Ecology Guided Reading Questions

Course: Ecology And Evolution (BIOL 201)

60 Documents
Students shared 60 documents in this course

University: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Was this document helpful?
Unit 3: Organisms in the Environment
BIOL 201 -Ecology Guided Reading Questions – Will not be turned in for credit.
Instructions:
- SimUtext has embedded questions as you read and activities. These help you engage with the
reading and verify your understanding. Do these questions. They are not graded.
- The purpose of Guided Reading Questions is to help you focus on the key pieces of the assigned
reading.
- Remember that you can download a “print” version of SimUText for reference outside of the
computer application. Visit this site to learn more.
-This document will not be turned in for credit. It’s just an optional tool to help with note
taking.
Lesson 21 – Intro to Ecology
Reading: Read the SimUText Assignment Lesson 21: Introduction to Ecology = Ecosystem
Ecology, Section 5, pages 1-12.
Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your
notes.
*Do the SimUText embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge. If you get
one wrong, don’t click around to “guess”. Re-read the question and try again!
-Keep a list of vocabulary words as you encounter them.
-What is an ecological footprint? What is biocapacity? Why has the ecological footprint grown so
rapidly in the last 50 years?
-Are ecological footprints the same between countries? Why or why not? Give examples.
-What are ecosystem services? Give examples along with definitions.
-What is Net Primary Production? Explain it in basic terms, avoid too much biology jargon. Do
humans use a lot or a little bit of the global Net Primary Production relative to other species?
Explain.
-Why is it hard to protect ecosystem services?
-Briefly, what is the tragedy of the commons?
What roles does regulation, true cooperation, and sustainability have in protecting common
goods?
Lesson 22 Global Natural History
Reading: Read the SimUText Assignment Lesson 3: Biogeography (Sec 4: 1-12); Ecosystem
Ecology (Sec 1: 8-11, Sec 2: 1-21)
Guided Reading Questions – answer in a way that will be meaningful to you when you review your
notes.
*Do the embedded questions and activities as you read to check your knowledge.

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