Org Bio Exam 3

a reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time, caused by primarily by uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere

• ocean acidification

• marine heatwaves

• coral bleaching

• ocean pattern changes

What are the biological effects of ocean acidification?

• • Makes it more difficult for calcifying organisms to make their calcium carbonate shells (corals, bivalves, pteropods)

• • Can disrupt organisms’ chemical signaling and sensing

• Can disrupt other pH-sensitive chemical reactions that are essential for life

• Can make it more energetically costly to maintain internal acid-base for all marine organisms

• Changing rainfall patterns

Choose all that are effects of climate change through warming.

• Changing rainfall patterns

• • More frequent and intense storms

• Changing ocean current patterns

short-term episodes of extreme sea surface temperature that exceed the 90th percentile of temperatures from 30 years' worth of local measurements for at least five days in a specific region

The biological effect of marine heatwaves is

• Can disrupt organisms’ chemical signaling and sensing

• organisms are heat-shocked over a very short period of time to the point where they become extremely stressed or die and have little or no time to move or acclimate

The key biological effects of global warming are:

• Ocean current patterns are changing drastically.

• • Organisms have to deal with heat stress, which can be energetically costly.

• • Organisms may have to find new habitat that is more suitable for their temperature tolerance → poleward distribution shifts.

• Organisms may have to find new food sources if their prey moves or becomes less abundant.

the process through which living organisms (decomposers) break down dead organic matter in the environment into its simpler components

Which of the following are examples of decomposers

• fungi

• bacteria

• protists

• detritovores like earthworms, termites, millipedes, and flies

• horses

Which of the following are things that happen to matter (carbon) in decomposition?

• Most of the matter is destroyed

• Most of the components are absorbed by the water molecules in the soil and become a part of runoff

• Large, complex molecules are broken into their smaller components

• Some of those components remain in the soil for plants to use

• Most of those components are absorbed by the decomposer itself as its own source
  of food (they are heterotrophs like animals!)

Which of the following describes a role that
decomposers play in ecosystems?

• They release carbon in the form of carbon dioxide into
  the atmosphere

• They transform sunlight energy into chemical energy

• They take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
  transform it into food

• They release carbon in the form of glucose into the
  atmosphere