How are the nine major terrestrial biomes of the world distributed in relation to temperature and precipitation?

Terrestrial biomes reflect global patterns of global precipitation and temperature. To categorize terrestrial biomes, we use plant growth forms because they are good indicators of the physical environment, reflecting the climatic zones as well as disturbances. In addition, plants are immobile. Earths climatic zones as a consequence of atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns resulting from the differential heating of earths surface by the sun. These climatic zones are major determinants of the distribution of terrestrial biomes. Tropics are characterized by high rain fall and warm, invariant temperatures. In the sub tropical regions that border the tropics, rainfall becomes more seasonal, with pronounced dry and wet seasons. The major deserts of the world are associated with zones of high pressure at about 30 degrees N and S. Subfreezing temperatures during winter are an important climatic feature of the temperate and polar zones. The amt of precipitation north and south of 40 degrees varies depending on proximity of the ocean and the influence of mountain ranges. The location of terrestrial biomes are correlated with these variations in temperature and precipitation. Temperature influence the distribution of plant growth forms directly through its effect on the physiological functioning of plants. Precipitation and temperature act in concert to influence the availability of water and its rate of loss by plants. How do the conditions and resources that affect living things tend to vary with depth and between seasons in lakes in the temperate zone? The depth and area of a lake has important consequences for its nutrient and energy status, and therefore for the composition of its biological communities. Deep lakes with a relatively small surface area tend to be nutrient poor compared with shallow lakes with a relatively large surface area. Lakes heat from the top. At temperatures above freezing, a layer of warm water tends to form near the surface and not to mix with colder, heavier water beneath. At the boundary between layers, temperature changes relatively rapidly with depth (thermocline heat slope). The lower layer tends to become low in oxygen, and the upper layer to become low in nutrients. In temperate climates, layers tend to be stable in summer and mix in fall. Water become more dense as T decreases. Spring - Same T all around because the wind mixes the water and oxygen flows to the bottom. Winter prevents mixing because of the ice on top so there is less oxygen on bottom Summer decreases in oxygen at bottom because mixing only occurs at the different density barrier. How are plants and animals similar and how are they different in the ways that they regulate their body temperatures?

Most Plants and animals can maintain internal temperatures that are lower or higher than the external temperature through position, form, color, rate of water loss. They are different because most animals and only a few plants can regulate through location and metabolic rate. Alternatively, organisms can adjust their tolerances and optima to match temperatures, through phenotypic plasticity. Plants and animals are similar because they have ways to make themselves cooler and warmer. Plants uses energy inputs such as conduction and convection. Heat loss also occurs through evaporation and transpiration. Animals can adjust their energy gains and losses via solar radiation, conduction, and infrared radiation.

How does annual precipitation vary with latitude and what explains this variation? Polar areas tend to be dry because cold air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air. Cold air is too cold to contain much water vapor. In addition, cold air is heavy which descends preventing much cloud formation. Mid latitudes have moderate levels of precipitation due to the collision of the warm subtropical and color polar air masses. Annual precipitation diminishes within the interiors of major land masses as the air dries and moves further away from its ocean source of moisture. The highest rainfall occurs near the equator in the tropics. Strong heating by the sun creates significant vertical uplift of air and forms heavy showers and frequent thunderstorms. The solar heating encourages convection and global circulation patterns cause northern and southern air masses to converge here causing frontal liftling. Places with mountains enhances the uplift or air and increases rainfall. Places with tall mountain ranges will cause more rainfall due to the rain shadow effect. Prevailing winds carry moist air over the land. The air rises up the mountain, it expands and cools. Because cool air can carry less water vapor than warm air, the molecules of water begin to condense to water droplets forming cloud. When it gets too heavy, the water falls as rain or snow. The wind continues over the mountain and descends on the leeward side. The air is warm and picks up moisture which makes the leeward side dry. Based on the equilibrium theory of island biogeography, how would you expect species richness to change over time on new islands of different sizes and distances from the mainland? Species richness is the total number of species in a community. The number of species increases with island size and decreases with distance from the mainland. As the number of species on an island increases, a larger fraction of colonists will be members of species already present. Therefore, the rate of arrival of new species decreases, until it reaches zero when the island has all the species in the species pool. The smaller an island population of a given species, the more likely it is to become extinct. In addition, the

number of species that can become extinct increases as species accumulate on an island. Since the rate of colonization decreases and the extinction rate increases as the number of species increases, the number of species should eventually reach an equilibrium at which they are both equal. We expect less colonization on islands that are more distant from the mainland. How does one measure biodiversity?

No single measure of biodiversity will be enough. Biodiversity cannot be captured in a single number. Biodiversity measurements has two components: number of individuals, number of species, number of different habitats etc, and the degree of difference between those. Species richness describes the number of elements but will not capture information on the number of individuals of the species. There are many ways of measuring biodiversity. They include: species richness, species evenness, disparity, species rarity, and genetic variability. Biodiversity is usually measured in terms of species richness. Specie richness is the total number of given species in a quantified area. The advantages of this is because it is proven to be measurable in practice. There is also a substantial amount of information that already exists on patterns in species richness. Species Evenness; the degree to which the number of individual organisms are evenly divided between different species of the community. Disparity; measures the phenotypic differences among species resulting from the differences genes within a population. Species Rarity; the rarity of individual organisms within a quantified area. Genetic Variability: each population of a species contributes to additional biodiversity due to variations between genes.

What roles do solutes play in water balance of terrestrial plants and in freshwater and saltwater fish? Presence in plants cell creates a water potential gradient from the surrounding water to the plant (freshwater environment) Synthesized by plants to lower osmotic potential by selectively taking up inorganic salts, this lowers their water potential below that of seawater to take up water (marine environments) SALTWATER FISHES are hypotonic to the ocean in which they live. To maintain their osmotic balance fishes drink seawater. But then the sea-salt ions diffuse into the blood from the intestines, and then from the blood to the gills to be excreted (via active transport) as a hypertonic solution.

FRESHWATER FISHES are hypertonic to their environment. Thus, osmotic movement is constantly bringing water into the fish. To counter-balance this, fish excrete excess water through their kidneys, through highly hypotonic urine. That is, their urine is even more watery than the water in which the fish swim. Further, they can absorb (active transport) salt ions from their environment through their gills and into their tissues.

How do community properties and environmental conditions change during succession? There is an increase in plant species richness and change in plant species composition with time. Increases up to spruce stage then declines slightly. There is also an increase in soil organic matter and soil moisture and huge increase in nitrogen as succession progressed. Changes in community properties and environmental conditions are due to effects on each other. The presence of animals in these communities acts as drivers of succession and change plants in ways that lead to transitions from one successional stage to another.

Why is water use efficiency higher in C4 and CAM plants than in C3 plants? C4 photosynthesizes faster than C3 plants under high light intensity and high temperatures because the CO2 is delivered directly to RUBISCO, not allowing it to grab oxygen and undergo photorespiration. C4 has better Water Use Efficiency because PEP Carboxylase brings in CO2 faster and so it does not need to keep its stomata open as much (less water lost by transpiration) for the same amount of CO2 gain for photosynthesis. Cam has better Water Use Efficiency than C3 plants under dry and waterless conditions due to opening stomata at night when transpiration rates are lower (no sunlight, lower temperatures, lower wind speeds, etc.). When conditions are extremely arid, CAM plants can just leave their stomata closed night and day allowing them to conserve water throughout the dry season.

What might explain the large scale patterns of biological diversity that exists on earth? The variety and abundance of species, their genetic composition, and the communities, ecosystems, and regions in which they occur. It also refers to ecological structures, functions, and processes in communities, ecosystems, and landscapes and includes variation within a species and among species, and comparative variation or diversity

among ecosystems. Biodiversity has evolved over time through the influence of genetic and ecological processes. Genetic processes such as natural selection are interconnected with ecological processes, including climate change and disturbance from fire, flood, wind events, and insect and disease infestation. Biodiversity is also believed to have dramatically changed due to large scale catastrophic events such as volcanism or meteor events. Human activities that affect biological diversity are many and vary greatly worldwide, but may include modification of ecological processes (e.g., fire regimes), conversion of forest to alternate land uses, hunting and fishing, introduction of non-native species (both in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems), fuelwood gathering, subsistence agriculture, and forest management practices that change habitat characteristics of forests. Describe the differences between C3 and C4 photosynthesis and their ecological consequences. The difference between C3 and C4 photosynthesis is that C4 requires more intense energy than C3. During droughts or places with intense sun light and temperature, C4 has the advantage. This is because C4 builds a resistance to environments with scarce amounts of water. They can withstand higher light levels due to greater electron transport capacity of rubisco, substantially reducing photorespiration. C3 is only good in places with moderate sunlight, temperature, and high density of CO2, and plenty of water in soil. C3 uses up 97% of the water that is absorbed through their roots and pathways during transpiration. The high concentration of CO2 lessen the probability that rubisco initiates an O2 molecule. C4 photosynthetic pathway can photosynthesize at higher rates than C3 plants under environmental conditions such as high temperatures. C4 has a greater ability to survive through intense temperature and intense light. Since the increasing amount of carbon that is trapped in the atmosphere, it will increase the Earths temperature by a few degrees Celsius which will affect earth. Also, as atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to increase, photorespiration rates are likely to decrease. This makes the advantages of C4 over C3 photosynthesis diminish and leading to changes in the proportions of C3 and C4 plants.

For any six of the components of heat balance (see equation on p 91), give an example of how animal increase or decrease the component to maintain a more favorable body temperature. The components of heat balance listed on p 91 in Cain et al. (2008) are metabolism, conduction, convection, solar radiation, incoming infrared radiation, outgoing infrared radiation,and evaporation. Metabolism generates heat through respiration and is always a positive component of the heat balance of an organism. Conduction is transfer of heat energy without bulk movement, such as between two solid, stationary objects, and can either cause an organism to gain or lose heat. Convection is heat transfer between bodies when one is moving with respect to the other, such as between an organism and moving

air. This component can also be positive or negative. Solar radiation is always a positive component because light energy heats objects, Incoming infrared radiation also heats objects, while emitting outgoing infrared radiation cools them. Evaporation is always a negative component of energy balance, because energy is used to evaporate water. Examples of how animals use each of these components to maintain a certain body temperature include, respectively, increasing metabolism at lower temperature to generate heat, keeping the body high above the ground at high temperature to reduce conduction, having a compact body in a cold climate to reduce convective cooling by moving air, having a dark skin in a cold climate to increase absorption of solar radiation, staying in a burrow underground during the day in the desert to avoid incoming infrared radiation, staying in a burrow during a cold night to avoid net emission of infrared radiation, and sweating when it is hot to increase evaporative heat loss. What drives succession? Succession is the change in species composition over time as a result of abiotic and biotic agents of change. It involves colonization and extinction of species in a community due to the abiotic and biotic agents of change. Biotic factors usually involve plants and sometimes animals. There are two types of succession. The first type, primary succession, involves the colonization of habitats devoid of life. The most basic resources is needed to fuel life, such as soil, nutrients, and water, may be lacking. The other type of succession is secondary succession. It involves the reestablishment of a community in which most, but not all, of the organisms have been destroyed. Agents that can cause this may include fire, and hurricanes. Animal influence succession in a way such as high population of white-tailed deer. This can selectively remove some species from a forest. Animals also play an important role as pollinators and seed dispersers while increasing the nutrient content of the soil. Abiotic factors such as soil types, moisture levels, weather, and climate can drive succession. Accumulation of organic matter can change the pH of the soil and affect the growing of plants because different plants require different amounts of nutrients. Other soil changes include erosion or leaching which alters the nutrient content in the ecosystems. Changes in temperature and rainfall patterns will promote changes in communities.