3.3 Plants & Animals
Concept 1: Animals & Plants Respond to the Environment
Success Criteria & Vocabulary
Click this drop-down menu to see the Success Criteria.
I can discuss the reasons why animals need to respond.
Click this drop-down menu to see the list of Vocabulary.
Abiotic factor: Physical or non-living factor such as light, temperature, and humidity.
Adaptive advantage: Any trait that results in an organism having a greater chance of surviving to an age where it can reproduce.
Adaptive behaviour: Behavioural adaptations that increase an organism's chance of survival and reproductive success.
Behaviour: An organism's interactive response to its environment.
Biotic factor: Influence due to other organisms, such as competition and predation.
Environment: All the factors in an organism's surroundings that can potentially affect it.
Fitness: An organism's ability to survive and pass on its alleles to the next generation.
Habitat: The place where an organism lives.
Natural selection: Theory that individuals most suited to the environment are more likely to survive, and pass on their favourable traits to offspring.
Niche: The sum total of an organism's requirements; its way of life.
Tasks
Complete sciPad:
Mark your own work using the sciPad online answers.
Complete Education Perfect:
Task called '3.3 Concept 1, 2, & 3'.
Responses to the Environment
RECAP: Abiotic Factors
RECAP: Biotic Factors and Competition
Learn the 10 keywords using Quizlet:
Concept 1: Support notes
The short-term and long-term responses of plants and animals to their external ENVIRONMENT are adaptive, meaning they enable these plants and animals to maximise their FITNESS in their ecological NICHE.
These short-term and long-term responses include the ways in which they orient themselves in space and time, as well as their responses to other organisms in their environment.
Before we move on, let's recap ecological concepts you learned from Year 10 and Year 12 Biology:
An organism's environment is the sum total of all the factors in its surroundings that affect it. It is quite different from its HABITAT, which is simply the place in which the organism lives.
Environmental factors can be divided into two groups: BIOTIC FACTORS, which include interactions with other organisms, and ABIOTIC or physical factors which include non-living conditions in the environment.
(If you really can't remember any of this, please go through my 2.6 Fundamentals of Ecology slides from last year.)
The ENVIRONMENT in which any organism lives is always changing, for example, light to dark or warm to cool. Organisms need to respond to these changes in order to survive. The response of the organism is called 'BEHAVIOUR'. These behavioural responses may be simple (e.g. moving away from light), or more complex (e.g. calling and displaying for a mate).
ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOURS are behavioural adaptations that increase an organism's chance of survival and reproductive success (i.e. FITNESS - its ability to survive and pass its alleles to the next generation).
Behaviours (usually called 'responses' in plants) are subject to NATURAL SELECTION. Those responses/behaviours that increase fitness are retained in the population, because they give that organism an ADAPTIVE ADVANTAGE. Whereas those responses/behaviours that decrease fitness are eventually lost.
Are you ready to get your mind blown?
Why do animals behave in the way they do? This simple question can have two different meanings, one about the past, and one about the future.
What were the events that caused the behaviour?
This is a physiological question, and is about the past. It relates to the process going on inside the animal that gave rise to the behaviour. The answer would be in terms of hormones, nerve impulses, muscle contractions, and so on.What is the effect of the behaviour, or how does it benefit the animal?
This is an ecological question, and concerns the future.
The physiological events that are the immediate cause of the response/behaviour are under the control of genes that were selected for over previous generations. An animal responds the way it does because the circumstances it meets in its lifetime are not greatly different from those experienced by previous generations. So, the ultimate cause of the behaviour is the advantage of that behaviour to the previous generations.
This video to the right listed 4 essential questions we must ask to understand adaptive behaviours in animals. These questions also work for understanding adaptive behaviours in plants.
What stimulus causes this behaviour?
What does the animal's body do in response to that stimulus?
How does this behaviour helps this animal survive or reproduce?
What is the evolutionary history of this behaviour?
Throughout this Achievement Standard, we will keep going back to these questions to understand adaptive behaviours in various examples.
Concept 2: Types of Environmental Stimuli
Success Criteria & Vocabulary
Click this drop-down menu to see the Success Criteria.
I can describe the different types of stimuli for animal and plant responses.
I can state the prefix for each stimulus.
Click this drop-down menu to see the list of Vocabulary.
Chemo-: Prefix for a chemical oriented response.
Environment: All the factors in an organism's surroundings that can potentially affect it.
Gravi-: Prefix for a gravity oriented response.
Hydro-: Prefix for a water/moisture oriented response.
Negative response: Response away from the stimulus.
Photo-: Prefix for a light oriented response.
Positive response: Response towards the stimulus.
Prefix: A group of letters added to the beginning of a word to make a new word.
Receptor: A structure that detects stimuli and sends a signal to another part(s) of the organism.
Stimulus: A change in an organism's environment to which it can respond.
Thermo-: Prefix for a temperature oriented response.
Thigmo-: Prefix for a touch/pressure oriented response.
Tasks
Complete sciPad:
Mark your own work using the sciPad online answers.
Complete Education Perfect:
Task called '3.3 Concept 1, 2, & 3'.
Responses to the Environment
RECAP: Abiotic Factors
RECAP: Biotic Factors and Competition
Learn the 12 keywords using Quizlet:
Concept 2: Support Notes
Types of Stimuli
Orientation responses can be categorised according to the type of STIMULUS drawing out the RESPONSE.
Stimuli are ENVIRONMENTAL changes that an organism can detect using sensory RECEPTORS (e.g. sensory receptors in the eyes detect light).
Most animals, being mobile, monitor the environment as they move through it, so sensory receptors are concentrated in the head region. Stimuli are described using PREFIXES (e.g. photo-).
At its simplest, a response to a response to a stimuli can be towards or away from the stimulus. Orientation responses towards the stimulus are identified as POSITIVE. Orientation responses away from the stimulus are identified as NEGATIVE.
Chemicals (i.e. CHEMO-) indicate the presence of substances that may be useful (food) or harmful (e.g. poisons) or may indicate the location of other individuals.
Plants are immobile (i.e. they can't move around) so the ability of roots to grow towards available water sources (i.e. HYDRO-) aids survival.
INVERTEBRATES (i.e. animals without a spine) that dry out easily are found in high water or moist (i.e. HYDRO-) environments to prevent desiccation.
Touch (i.e. THIGMO-) is an important stimulus. It may indicate the presence of a threat or something that will give support.
Light (i.e. PHOTO-) can give information about the orientation (up or down) and about the presence of others. Sudden changes in light can indicate movement, which may need to be avoided.
Gravity (i.e. GRAVI-) allows organisms to orientate themselves vertically. Most animals tend to orientate their back-side up, and belly side down. In plants, gravity is an important stimulus for the correct orientation of shoots and roots.
Detecting changes in temperature (i.e. THERMO-) helps organisms survive by adjusting physiology or behaviour to their surroundings. An increase in temperature beyond a certain limit indicates the need to find shade. A decrease in temperature beyond a certain limit indicates the need to find a source of heat.
Assessment Information
as91603.pdfBiology 3.3 (AS91603) is a Level 3 External worth 5 credits. These 5 credits count towards your University Entrance (UE) literacy credits for Reading and Writing.
You will be assessed in the following ways:
Topic Test (formal) - TBC
Practice Exam (formal) - TBC
End of Year Exam (formal) - Wednesday 17 November 2021 at 2PM.
For the official description of this Achievement Standard, please read the document to the right.
Past NCEA Examinations
2020 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Monogamy, parental care
Q2: Taxis, kinesis
Q3: Photoperiodism, phytochrome system
91603-exm-2020.pdf2019 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Migration, cues, navigation
Q2: Taxis, interspecific competition/allelopathy
Q3: Pair bonding, territories, home ranges, actograms.
91603-exm-2019.pdf91603-ass-2019.pdf2018 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Tropism, nastic response
Q2: Parasitism, herbivory
Q3: Biological clock, actogram
91603-exm-2018.pdf91603-ass-2018.pdf2017 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Tropism, allelopathy
Q2: Migration, navigation.
Q3: Photoperiodism, mutualism.
91603-exm-2017.pdf91603-ass-2017.pdf2016 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Territoriality, agonistic behaviour, competition, mutualism, parasitism.
Q2: Hierarchy
Q3: Nocturnal, endogenous rhythm, actograms
91603-exm-2016.pdf91603-ass-2016.pdf2015 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Taxis, kinesis
Q2: Migration, territoriality, pair bonding, parental care.
Q3: Mutualism, predation, interspecific competition
91603-exm-2015.pdf91603-ass-2015.pdf2014 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Territoriality
Q2: Interspecific competition, allelopathy
Q3: Nastic responses, endogenous rhythms.
91603-exm-2014.pdf91603-ass-2014.pdf2013 Exam Paper & Assessment Schedule:
Q1: Parasitism, reproductive strategies
Q2: Endogenous rhythms, actograms
Q3: Tropism, auxin.
91603-exm-2013.pdf91603-ass-2013.pdf