Students can go through AP Inter 1st Year Zoology Notes 8th Lesson Ecology and Environment will help students in revising the entire concepts quickly.
AP Inter 1st Year Zoology Notes 8th Lesson Ecology and Environment
→ Ecology is a subject which deals with the study of the interactions among organisms and between the organisms and their physical environment.
→ The term ‘ecology’ was introduced by ‘Ernst Haeckel’
→ Ecology has two main branches Autecology, Synecology
→ A biome is a large community of plants and animals that occupies a vast region.
→ All the habitate zones on the earth constitue that ecosphere or bisophere
→ Environment is the sum total of biotic and abiotic factors present around the organisms influencing them in various ways.
→ With in a community, each organisms occupies a particular biological role or niche.
→ The duration of the light hours/exposure to the light in a day is known as photoperiod.
→ When water reaches 4°C, it becomes more dense and heavy.
→ Biological control methods adapted in agricultural pest control are based on the ability of the predators to regulate prey population.
→ The plant Calotropis produces highly poisonous Cardia glycosides.
→ An ecosystem is a functional unit of nature.
→ When the path of food energy is linear, the components resemble the links of a chain, and it is called food chain’. The transfer of energy through a food chain is known as energy flow.
→ The differences in the temperature from thermal layers in water are called ‘Thermal stratification’.
→ The zone of water where there is rapid decrease in temperature is called Thermocline.
→ Increase in the concentration of the pollutant or toxicant of successive tropic levels is an aquatic food chain is called Bio-magnification.
→ In an ecosystem the main trophic levels are
- producers,
- consumers,
- decomposers.
→ Each has 3 main divisions :
- Atmosphere,
- Hydrosphere,
- Lithiosphere.
→ Atmosphere has 4 main layers.
- Trophosphere,
- Stratosphere,
- Ionosphere,
- Exosphere.
→ Three zones of a fresh water lakes are
- Litoral zone,
- Limnotic zone,
- Profundal zone.
→ Autecology : Ecology of individual species.
→ Basking : Exposing the body to sun light, to gain temperature.
→ Benthos : It refers to all the attached, creeping or burrowing organisms that inhabit the bottom of rivers, lakes and sea.
→ Biomass : The total mass of living material within a specified area at a given time.
→ Blubber : It is a specialized subcutaneous layer of fat found only in marine mammals. It is almost continuous across the body of marine mammals but absent on appendages.
→ Brakish water : An intermediate zone between freshwater and marine water.
→ Camouflage : Concealing coloration (e.g., melanism) and morphology (e.g. stick insects) as defence against predation.
→ Chemoautotrophs : These comprise bacteria that obtain energy from the oxidation of simple inorganic compounds and can use the energy released to assimilate CO2 and transfer the energy into organic compounds. E.g. : Thiobacilli species.
→ Climate : The climate of an area can be described by its mean values of temperature, rainfall, wind speed.
→ Community : The total living biotic component of an ecosystem, including plants, animals and microbes.
→ Competitive exclusion : It is often known as Gause principle.
→ Cyclomorphosis : Cyclic change in phenotype, such as seasonal changes in morphology, particularly conspicuous among cladoceran, crustacean and rotifers.
→ Detritus : Non living organic matter. Usually refers to particulate matter to that of plant rather than animal origin. E.g. : Leaf litter.
→ Diapause : It is a condition of arrested growth or reproductive development common in many organisms, particularly insects, during unfavourable conditions.
→ Dimictic Lake : The fake that undergoes two periods of complete vertical mixing, usually in the spring and the fall. During.the summer dimictic lakes are thermally stratified.
→ Edaphic factors : The physical, chemical and biotic characteristics of the soil that influence plant growth and distribution.
→ Estuary : It is a place where river joins the sea. The water in an estuary is subjected to seasonal variations in salinity. The water is called brackish water. The animals living there are euryhaline.
→ Gemmules : These are the internal buds that appear in the asexual reproduction of sponges. Gemmules are made up of amoebocytes and covered by a layer of spicules and can survive in unfavourable conditions.
→ Leaching : Removal of soluble components by flowing water from soil.
→ Mycorrhizae : The symbiotic association of mycelium of a fungus with the roots of a seed plant.
→ Osmotrophic nutrition : Intake of pre-digested food material through the body surface.
→ Pedonic forms : The organisms which depend on substratum (or support) in an aquatic ecosystem.
→ Periphyton : The communities of tiny organisms like protozoa, insect larvae, snails that live on the surfaces of aquatic plants.
→ Savannas : Grassland region with scattered trees in subtropical and tropical regions.
→ Standing crop : The mass of vegetation in a given area at one particular time. Although most of often applied to plant material, the term includes animal biomass.
→ Denitrificaion : Denitrification is a microbially facilitated process of nitrate reduction that may ultimately produce molecular nitrogen (N2) through a series of intermediate gaseous nitrogen oxide products.
→ Decomposer : Decomposers (or saprotrophs) are organisms that break down dead or decaying organisms, and in doing so carry out the natural process of decomposition.
→ Sedimentary : Formed by the accumulation and consolidation of mineral and organic fragments that have been deposited by water, ice, or wind.
→ Asymptote : A line which approaches nearer to some curve than assignable distance, but, though infinitely extended, would never meet it.
→ Chemo-autotroph : An organism (typically a bacterium or a protozoan) that obtains energy through chemical process, which is by the oxidation of electron donating molecules from the environment, rather than by photosynthesis.
→ Mortality : Death rate or the number of individuals that died in a population in a unit time.
→ Natality : Birth rate or the number of individuals produced in a population in unit time.
→ Acid rains : Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic.
→ Algal bloom : An algal bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae (typically microscopic) in an aquatic system.
→ Biodegradable : Capable of being broken down especially into harmless products by the action of living things (as microorganisms).
→ Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) : The amount of dissolved oxygen needed by aerobic biological organisms in a body of water to break down organic material present in a given water sample at certain temperature over a specific time period.
→ Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD): A test procedure, based on the chemical decomposition of organic and inorganic contaminants dissolved or suspended in water.
→ Chloro Fluoro Carbons (CFC) : Any of various halocarbon compounds consisting of carbon, hydrogen, chlorine, and fluorine, once used widely as aerosol propellants and refrigerators. Chlorofluorocarbons are believed to cause depletion of the atmospheric ozone layer.
→ Deforesation : The removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use.
→ Eutrophication : A process whereby water bodies, such as lakes, estuaries or slow-moving streams receive excess nutrients that stimulate excessive plant growth (algae, periphyton attached algae, and nuisance plants and weeds).
→ Fungicides : Substance or preparation, as a spray or dust, used for destroying fungi.
→ Herbicides : Chemicals used to kill unwanted weeds.
→ Incinerator : a furnace or apparatus for burning trash, garbage, etc., to ashes.
→ Land fills : Landfill is a carefully engineered depression in the ground (or built on top of the ground, resembling a football stadium) into which wastes are dumped.
→ Pesticides : Chemicals used to kill pests, especially insects.
→ Photochemical smog: A type of air pollution produced when sunlight acts upon motor vehicle exhaust gases to form harmful substances such as ozone (O3), aldehydes and peroxy acetyl nitrate (PAN).
→ Polyblend : Physical mixture of two or more polymers. Such blends usually yield products with favorable properties of both components.
→ Scrubber : Scrubbers are commonly used to eliminate potentially harmful dust and pollutants from exhausts. In scrubbers, a liquid, in general water added with active chemicals is sprayed in to the air flow. Aerosol and gaseous pollutants in the air stream are removed by either absorption or chemical reactions with the water solution.
→ Sewage : Domestic waste water containing various solid and liquid waste materials including human excreta,
→ Soil erosion : The washing away of soil by the flow of water or wind
→ Thermal Pollution : Water Pollution caused by hot water coming out from industries, thermal power plants etc., which is harmful to aquatic organisms.
→ Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) : One of the three types of invisible light rays (together with ultraviolet-A and ultraviolet-C) given off by the sun. Although ultraviolet-C is the most dangerous type of ultraviolet light In terms of its potential to harm life on earth, it cannot penetrate earth’s protective ozone layer. Therefore, it posses no threat to human, animal or plant life on earth as long as ozone layer is intact. Ultraviolet-A and ultraviolet- B, on the other.hand, do penetrate the ozone layer in attenuated form and reach the surface of the planet. UV-A rays cause cells to age and can cause some damage to cells DNA. They are linked to long-term skin damage such as wrinkles, but are also thought to play a role in some skin cancers. UVB rays can cause direct damage to the DNA and are the main rays that cause sunburns. They are also believed to cause most skin cancers.
→ Environment is the major factor for the evolution and continuation of life.
→ Ecology is the study of environment and its habitants.
→ Living being cannot survive without energy.
→ Solar energy is the primary source of energy for all the living forms either directly or indirectly.
→ Capture and storing of energy by chlorophyll is the major step in evolution.
→ Ozone is beneficial when it is in the outer layer of atmosphere. It protects the life from UV rays of Sun. It is dangerous when it is close to the earth.
→ Pollutants are there since the beginning of earth, but they are balanced by non-pollutants.
→ Man is solely responsible for fitting the balance towards pollutants and may be responsible for his own extinction unless remedial steps are taken.
→ UV rays kill micro organisms. UV rays convert the sterols in the skin to vitamin D. [IPE]
→ Mutualism is a type of interaction between different species in which both are benefited.
Ex: Bees and flowering plant. [IPE]
→ Summer Stratification: During summer in temporate lakes, the formation of three layers of water is called Summer stratification.
→ DFC is detritus food chain. It is an important food chain in terrestrial ecosystem.
→ Detritus is formed from leaf litter, dead bodies, and faeces of animals.
→ Green house effect: ‘Green house effect’ is a naturally occuring phenomenon, that is responsible for heating of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. [IPE]
→ Global Warming: Rise of temperature above normal level in the atmosphere is called global warming. This happens due to the increase in the emission of green house gases. [IPE]
→ Lake Ecosystem zones: (I) Littoral zone (II) Limnetic zone (III) Profundal zone. [IPE]
→ Food chains of Ecosystem: [IPE]
- Grazing food chain
- Parasite food chain
- Detritus food chain
→ Major air pollutants:
- Carbonmonoxide
- Carbondioxide
- Sulphurdioxide [IPE]
- Nitrogen oxides
- Aerosols
- Noise pollution.
→ National Aquatic Animal of India is River dolphin. [NEET-2016]
→ The principle of competitive exclusion was stated by GF.Gause. [NEET-2016]
→ The upright pyramid of number is absent in forest. [2012 PMT]
→ Stratification is not a functional unit of an ecosystem. [2012 PMT]
→ About 70% of total global carbon is found in oceans.
→ The highest DDT concentration in aquatic food chain shall occur in seagull. [NEET-2016]
→ A lake which is rich in organic waste may result in mortality of fish due to lack of oxygen. [NEET-2016]
→ Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) may not be a good index for pollution for water bodies receiving effluents from petroleum industry. [NEET-2016]
→ Depletion of Ozone gas in the atmosphere can lead to an increased incidence of skin Cancers [NEET-2016]
→ Increase in concentration of the toxicant at successive trophic levels is known as biomagnification. [NEET-2015]
→ Lichens are most suitable indicators of SO2 pollution in the environment. [NEET-2015]
→ Eutrophication of water bodies leading to killing of fishes is mainly due to non-availability of oxygen. [NEET-2015]
→ Acid rain is caused by increase in the atmospheric concentration of SO2NO2. [NEET-2015]
→ Ozone layer is present in stratosphere. [NEET-2014]
→ A location with luxuriant growth of lichens on the trees indicates that the location is not polluted. [NEET-2014]
→ Global warming can be controlled by reducing deforestation, cutting down use of fossil fuel. [NEET-2013]
→ Number of hotspots of biodiversity in the world have been identified till date by Norman Myers is 34. [NEET-2016]
→ Kyoto protocol was endorsed at CoP-3. [NEET-2013]
→ Theregion of biosphere reserve which is legally protected and where no human activity is allowed is known as core zone. [NEET-2017]
→ Alexander von Humboldt described for the first time population growth equation. [NEET-2017]
→ Thiobacillus is a group of bacteria helpful in carrying out Denitrification. [NEET-2019]
→ Gases mainly responsible for green house effect are Carbondioxide & Methane [NEET-2019]
→ The most suitable method for disposal of nuclear waste is ’burying the waste within rocks and deep below the earth’s surface’. [NEET-2019]
→ Polyblend, a fine powder of recycled modified plastic, has proved to be a good material for construction of roads. [NEET-2019]
→ The protocol that aimed for reducing emission of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere is Montreal protocol
→ Group of biocontrol agents:Trichoderma, Baculovirus, Bacillus Thruingiensis [NEET-2019]
→ Equipment that is essentially required for growing microbes on a large scale, for industrial production of enzymes is Bioreactor. [NEET-2019]
→ The amount of nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and calcium present in the soil at any given time, is referred as standing state. [NEET-2021]