BIL 160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Ecological Niche, Euryhaline, Stenohaline
28 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Organismal ecology (physiologist: looks at the physiological reactions of the organism to its environment, regulators: use metabolic means to maintain homeostasis in response to environmental changes (homeotherms, endotherms) Echindoderms that entirely lack an excretory system are strictly limited to marine environments, so their tissues have the same salinity as sea water. Limits of tolerance: lots of species have a continuum of tolerance and can exist at multiple, eury- can tolerate a wide range of given environmental parameters. Euryhaline- able to withstand wide ranges of salt (salmon, eel) Eurythermal- can tolerate wide range of temperatures (tigers, dogs, humans) Eurytopic- able to survive in a wide variety of habitats (possum: steno- organisms that do not tolerate wide fluctuations of a given environmental parameter. Stenohaline- can tolerate a narrow amount of salinities. Stenobathic- can live at only a relatively narrow range of aquatic depths (california mussels)
