“Ecology Interview Questions and Answers will Guide us now that the Ecology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the distribution and abundance of organisms and their interactions with their environment. Learn more basic and advance concepts or get preparation of Ecology based jobs interview by our Ecology Interview Questions and Answers Guide.”
When biomasses are compared often, the concept of dry mass is used. The dry mass is the total mass less the water mass of an individual. The total mass is also called fresh mass. To use dry mass instead of fresh mass is utile because among living beings, there are differences related to the proportion of water within their body and such differences can distort the quantitative analysis of incorporated organic material.
In a numeric pyramid the base corresponds to the first tropic level, i.e., to the producers. The top level of the pyramid corresponds generally to the last consumer order of the food chain (since the number of individual decomposers, most of them microorganisms, is too large to be represented).
Image Diversity: decomposers
Energy pyramids represent the amount of available energy in each tropic level of the food chain.
Image Diversity: energy pyramids
Biomass pyramids represent the sum of the masses of the individuals that participate in each tropic level of a food chain.
Image Diversity: biomass pyramids
If an intermediate level of a numeric pyramid has its variable dimension decreased, i.e., if the number of individuals of such level is reduced, the number of individuals of the level below will increase and the number of individuals of the level above will be reduced. That happens because the individuals of the level below will face less predators and the individuals of the level above will have less available food.
Since the numeric pyramid represents the quantity of individuals in each trophic level of the food chain, inferior tropic levels with fewer individuals than the superior tropic levels may exist. For example, a single tree can serve as food to millions of insects.
Numeric pyramids represent the number of individuals in each tropic level of a food chain.
Image Diversity: numeric pyramids
The chain concept is a theoretical model to study the energy flux in ecosystems. Actually, in an ecosystem the organisms are part of several interconnected food chains, forming a food web. Therefore, the chain is a theoretical linear sequence and the web is a more realistic representation of nature in which the food chains interconnect forming a web.
Image Diversity: food web
The three types of tropic pyramids studied in Ecology are the numeric pyramid, the biomass pyramid, and the energy pyramid.
Generally, the variable dimension of the pyramid is the width and the height is always the same for each represented strata of living beings. The width therefore represents the number of individuals, or the total mass of these individuals or the available energy in each tropic level.
Image Diversity: tropic pyramids
Gross primary production of an ecosystem, or GPP, is the quantity of organic material found in a given area in a given period.
Since only autotrophs produce organic material and photosynthesis is the main production process, GPP is a result of the photosynthesis.
Commensalism may involve obtention of food (for example, the innocuous bacteria of the human guts), shelter or support (epiphytes on trees) and transportation (pollen carried by insects or birds). The commensalism that involves obtention of shelter is also called inquilinism.
Examples of interspecific competition are the dispute among vultures, worms, flies, and microorganisms for carrions and the competition between snakes and eagles for rodents.
Symbiosis and Other Interactions - Image Diversity: interspecific competition
Parasitism is the ecological interaction in which a being lives at the expense of other. The parasite often does not cause immediate death of the host since it needs the host alive to survive.
Parasitism is an inharmonious (negative) interspecific ecological interaction, since although one participant benefit the other is harmed.
Symbiosis and Other Interactions - Image Diversity: parasitism
Mainly water and light, but also mineral salts, temperature, and carbon dioxide are factors that interfere with the gross primary productivity.
Net primary production is the gross primary productivity less the organic material consumed as energy source in the metabolism of the producers: NPP = GPP - (organic material spent in aerobic respiration). It represents the organic material available in the first tropic level. < /FONT >
The base of the energy pyramids must represent the NPP and not the GPP since the idea of these pyramids is to show the available energy in each trophic level of the food chain.
Biogeochemical cycles are representations of the circulation and recycling of matter in nature.
The main biogeochemical cycles studied in Ecology are the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle.
The water cycle represents the circulation and recycling of water in nature.
Liquid water on the planet surface is heated by the sun and turns into water vapor that gains the atmosphere. In the atmosphere large volumes of water vapor, form clouds that when cooled precipitate liquid water as rain. Therefore, water comes back to the planet surface and the cycle is completed. As possible steps of the cycle, water may still be stored in subterranean reservatory or under the form of ice in mountains and oceans and it may also be used in the metabolism of living beings, incorporated into the body of the individuals or excreted through urine, feces, and transpiration.
Image Diversity: the water cycle
The carbon cycle represents the circulation and recycling of the chemical element carbon in nature because of the action of living beings.
Photosynthetic beings absorb carbon as carbon dioxide available in the atmosphere and the carbon atoms become part of glucose molecules. During the cellular respiration of these beings, part of this organic material is consumed to generate ATP and in this process, carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere. Other part is incorporated by the photosynthetic organisms into the molecules that compose their structure. The carbon atoms incorporated into the producers are transferred to the next tropic level and again part is liberated by the cellular respiration of the consumers, part becomes constituent of the consumer body and part is excreted as uric acid or urea (excretes later recycled by decomposer bacteria). Therefore, carbon absorbed by the producers in photosynthesis returns to the atmosphere through cellular respiration along the food chain until the decomposers that also liberate carbon dioxide in their energetic metabolism. Under special conditions in a process, that takes millions of years carbon incorporated into organisms may also constitute fossil fuels stored in deposits under the surface of the planet as fossil fuels burn the carbon atoms return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. The burning of vegetable fuels, like wood, also returns carbon to the atmosphere.
The main biological process that consumes carbon dioxide is photosynthesis.
Carbon dioxide is made by producers and consumers through cellular respiration.
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