Texas Aquatic Ecosystems/ Biodiversity

Why would a scientist use sampling to measure a population?

• To create new habitat

• Because each part of an ecosystem is connected to and depends on all the others

• Because ecosystems may change in response to natural or human-caused events

• To estimate populations without having to count every organism

What kinds of aquatic ecosystems do we have in Texas?

• Aquifers, springs, rivers, and streams

• Lakes, ponds, and wetlands

• Bays, estuaries and oceans

• All of the above

What is biodiversity?

• A complex web of relationships between living and non-living things

• The variety and number of different organisms and population, and the way they live together

• The kinds of aquatic ecosystems found in Texas

• The quality of organisms given the volume of resources in the area

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Some human activities that reduce aquatic biodiversity include:

• Draining a wetland

• Damming a river

• Pumping water out of an aquifer

• All of the above

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One advantage of biodiversity in an ecosystem is that it

• develops relationships between organisms that are always positive over long periods of time

• ensures a large amount of identical genetic material

• increases the chance that some organisms will survive a major change in the environment

• guarantees that the largest organisms will dominate the area

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The diagram represents the varying biodiversity in three ecosystems:

The level of biodiversity in ecosystem A is high because it has the

• least variety of energy levels and connections

• greatest number of decomposers

• greatest variety of species and genetics

• least number of ecological niches

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What characterizes the difference rivers from lakes?

• Lakes contain biotic factors; rivers contain abiotic factors

• Lakes stand still; rivers flow over the surface

• Lakes have free floating producers ; rivers have rooted producers

• Lakes are large ; rivers are small

Springs are

• points where groundwater emerges from the ground

• points where surface water is contaminated

• points where groundwater penetrates into the ground

• seasons where flowers bloom and organisms exit hibernation

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What would be most beneficial towards maintaining equilibrium in an ecosystem over a long period of time?

• A sudden change in climate

• Organisms imported by humans from other environments

• Predators eliminated from the food chain

• A diversity of organisms

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Removing one organism from an ecosystem will affect the other organisms in the ecosystem because

• Scientists have sampled them over time

• They are all connected and dependent on the others

• They are all the same species and use the same resources

• Biodiversity has to do with containing a variety of species

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