Ecology

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

The study of organisms and their interactions with the environment.

Question 2

What is the biosphere?

Answer 2

Life-supporting region of the Earth; all land, water, and air in which organisms live.

Question 3

What are biotic factors?

Answer 3

All of the living or once living parts of an ecosystem.

Question 4

What are abiotic factors?

Answer 4

All of the nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

Question 4

What are abiotic factors?

Answer 4

All of the nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

Question 5

What are organisms?

Answer 5

An individual member of a species within a population.

Question 6

What are populations?

Answer 6

All of the organisms in an ecosystem that belong to the same species.

Question 7

What are communities?

Answer 7

All of the populations in an ecosystem.

Question 8

What are ecosystems?

Answer 8

All of the organisms living in an area and the nonliving features of their environment.

Question 9

What are habitats?

Answer 9

The place in which an organism lives.

Question 10

What is a niche?

Answer 10

How an organism survives, how it obtains food and shelter, how it finds a mate and cares for its offspring, and how it avoids danger.

Question 11

What is a carrying capacity?

Answer 11

The largest number of individuals of one species that an ecosystem can support over time.

Question 12

What are limiting factors?

Answer 12

Anything that restricts the number of individuals in a population.

Question 13

What are predators?

Answer 13

Consumers that capture and eat other consumers.

Question 14

What are predators?

Answer 14

Consumers that capture and eat other consumers.

Question 15

What are prey?

Answer 15

The organism that is captured and consumed by the predator.

Question 16

What are producers/autotrophs?

Answer 16

Organisms such as plants and algae, which through the process of photosynthesis create energy-rich food.

Question 17

What are consumers/heterotrophs?

Answer 17

An organism that cannot make its own food and feeds on other organisms.

Question 18

What are herbivores?

Answer 18

A consumer that only eats plants.

Question 19

What are carnivores?

Answer 19

A consumer that feeds only on other animals.

Question 20

What are omnivores?

Answer 20

A consumer that feeds on plants and animals.

Question 21

What are scavengers?

Answer 21

A consumer that eats organisms that have already died.

Question 22

What are decomposers?

Answer 22

A consumer that breaks down the complex compounds of dead and decaying plants and animals into simpler molecules that can be more easily absorbed.

Question 23

What is a food chain?

Answer 23

A diagram that shows the flow of energy and matter between animals in a community.

Question 24

What is a food web?

Answer 24

Shows all the possible feeding relationships at each trophic level in a community.

Question 25

What is a trophic level?

Answer 25

A feeding step in a food chain, or ecological energy pyramid.

Question 26

What is an ecological energy pyramid?

Answer 26

Shows how energy flows through an ecosystem.

Question 27

What is symbiosis?

Answer 27

A relationship of dependence or mutual benefit between organisms of the same ecosystem.

Question 28

What is mutualism?

Answer 28

A relationship where both organisms benefit.

Question 29

What is commensalism?

Answer 29

A relationship where one organism benefits and the other organism is not affected.

Question 30

What is parasitism?

Answer 30

A relationship where one organism benefits and the other organism is harmed.

Question 31

What is ecological succession?

Answer 31

Natural, gradual changes in the types of species that live in an area; can be primary or secondary

Question 32

What is primary succession?

Answer 32

Begins in an area where NO SOIL is present. The development of an ecosystem in an area that has never had a community living within it.

Question 33

What is secondary succession?

Answer 33

The process of restabilization that follows a disturbance in an area where life has formed an ecosystem. SOIL IS ALREADY PRESENT.

Question 34

What is a climax community?

Answer 34

A mature, stable community that is the final stage of ecological succession. Conditions, biotic and abiotic factors, including resources, are suitable for an ecosystem to exist. (End result of succession.)