Scioly.org

any tips for ecology becuz last year sucked.......

does anyone else realize that the GreenHill test on the Ecology test exchange is actually a remote sensing test?

Sasher, oxion said that you screwed it up for him XD

Will we need to know specific species that live in the biomes? If not, would it still be a good idea to know some?

(First year doing Ecology )

You should be familiar with the more common ones. It is more important to be able to use the animals in the biomes as examples of biome-specific adaptations.

has anyone found the keystone species for the tundra?
one source gave me lemmings
one gave me arctic fox
one gave me caribou
one gave me lichen
one said there is no true keystone species

which one is it?

quizbowl wrote:has anyone found the keystone species for the tundra?
one source gave me lemmings
one gave me arctic fox
one gave me caribou
one gave me lichen
one said there is no true keystone species

which one is it?

Technically, there never is just one keystone species in an area. If you remove the arctic fox, caribou levels increase to high levels, plants get devoured quickly, and everything starves. If caribou are removed, then predators starve and plants grow out of control. Plants get removed, everything starves. So there are multiple keystone species in every sort of habitat.

Note: I'm no expert on the tundra, and so my examples are hypothetical. I assume that's similar to how things really play out, but I don't know the exact dynamics of the tundra. It's the same basic idea though.

quizbowl wrote:has anyone found the keystone species for the tundra?
one source gave me lemmings
one gave me arctic fox
one gave me caribou
one gave me lichen
one said there is no true keystone species

which one is it?

Some important species in the tundra biome include reindeer and caribou, oxen, wolves, arctic fox, ptarmigan, snow geese, tundra swans, Dall sheep, and brown bears, however I am not completely sure if which, if any, of those are keystone species, the source merely stated that they were important. Also, does the keystone species have to be the same for every ecosystem of the tundra biome? I read on one source that for alpine tundra in the rocky mountains a gopher is a keystone species because when it burrows, plants use the reworked soil to grow. What sources did you use?

I think that a polar bear would be more important than a brown bear.
Quiz, I think gneiss is right. All species are essential, but the most common are the ones that impact the environment the most. For instance, removing an already rare species may not cause such turmoil as a common one being removed.

paleonaps wrote:I think that a polar bear would be more important than a brown bear.
Quiz, I think gneiss is right. All species are essential, but the most common are the ones that impact the environment the most. For instance, removing an already rare species may not cause such turmoil as a common one being removed.

I don't know about the bears, that is just what I read. Also, Paleonaps, you have to keep in mind that a keystone species is one whose importance is disproportionate to its abundance, so if this rare species had a larger effect, it could be considered keystone, and if the common species had great importance, it may not be a keystone species if its importance is solely because of the abundance.