B7 Competition (page 83) Flashcards
What is meant by Ecology?
its all about Organisms and the environment they live in, and how the two interact.
What is meant by Habitat?
The place where an organism lives.
What is meant by Population?
All the organisms of one species living in a habitat.
What is meant by ‘community’?
The populations of different species living in a habitat.
What is Abiotic factors?
Non-living factors of the environment, e.g. temperature.
What is Biotic factors?
living factors of the environment, e.g. food.
What is Ecosystem?
The interaction of a community of living organisms (biotic) with the non-living (abiotic) parts of their environment.
(more information about abiotic and biotic factors on page 84).
How do Organisms survive?
Organisms need things from their environment and from other organisms in order to survive and reproduce.
Give an example how plants survive?
Plants need light and space, as well s water and mineral ions (nutrients) from the soil.
Give an example how Animals survive?
Animals need space (territory), food, water and mates.
(Organisms compete with other species and members of their own species for the same resources).
What is Interdependence?
In a community, each species depends on other species for things such as food, shelter, pollination and seed dispersal - this is Interdependence.
The interdependence of all living things in an ecosystem means that any major change in the ecoysystem (such as one species being removed) can have what effect?
this can have far-reaching effects.
(any change in any environment can have knock-on effects).
The diagram on page 83 shows part of a food web (a diagram of what eats what) from a stream.
Stonefly Larvae are particulary sensitive to pollution. Suppose pollution killed them in this stream, what effects might this have on some of the other organisms in the food web?
Blackfly Larvae Organism would be less competition for algae, so would have an increased effect on population.
Also the Blackfry Larvae is more likely to be eaten by predators, and have a decrease effect on population.
Water spider would have less food, so would decrease the effect on population
Stickleback, would have less food (if water spider or mayfly larvae numbers decrease), so again a decrease effect on population.
(remember that food webs are very complex and that these effects are difficult to predict accurately).
In some communities, all the species and environmental factors are in balance, what do this mean?
It means that the population sizes are roughly constant (they may go up and down in cycles - see page 86). These are called stable communities.
Stable communities include what?
they include tropical rainforests and ancient oak woodlands.
Make sure you know what organisms compete for in an ecosystem.
