Ecology Unit

Question 1

What is a heterotroph? Give another name used for heterotroph.

Answer 1

An organism that obtains energy from food it consumes . Also called consumers

Question 2

What is an autotroph? Give another name used for an autotroph.

Answer 2

An organism that can capture energy from sunlight or other chemicals and use it to produce their own food from inorganic compounds. Also called producers

Question 3

What is the scientific study of life?

Answer 3

Biology

Question 4

The total surroundings of an organism or a group of organisms.

Answer 4

Environment

Question 5

A group of individuals of the same species living in a specific geographical area and reproducing.

Answer 5

Population

Question 6

What level are you studying if you are observing only stink bugs in Monroeville PA

Answer 6

Population level

Question 7

What is a producer?

Answer 7

Organism that uses a primary energy source(sun or chemicals) to make food for themselves

Question 8

What two processes can producers use to make their own food?

Answer 8

Photosynthesis or chemosynthesis

Question 9

What is the formula for photosynthesis?Give examples of photosynthesizers.

Answer 9

6CO2 + 6H2O yields C6H12O6 + 6O2(sunlight is needed to occur) Examples are plants, algae, and cyanobacteria

Question 10

What is chemosynthesis? Give an example

Answer 10

Organism uses chemicals to create their own food. Example is sulfur bacteria

Question 11

What is the lowest taxonomic level of biological classification consisting of organisms that are so similar that they can reproduce and make fertile offspring

Answer 11

Species

Question 12

What is terrestrial?

Answer 12

A term that describes an organism that is associated with a land environment

Question 13

What is aquatic?

Answer 13

A term that describes an organism associated with a water environment

Question 14

What is an abiotic factor? Give 4 examples of abiotic factors

Answer 14

Any nonliving factor in an ecosystem Examples are atmospheric gases, minerals, sunlight, and water

Question 15

The artificial cultivation of food, fiber, and other goods by the systematic growing and harvesting of various organisms

Answer 15

Agriculture

Question 16

What is biochemical conversion?

Answer 16

The changing of organic matter into other chemical forms such as fuels

Question 17

What are Biogeochemical cycles? Give some examples.

Answer 17

Movement of abiotic factors between the living and nonliving components within ecosystems. AKA nutient cycles Examples are water cycle, nitrogen cycle, carbon cycle, phosphorous cycle

Question 18

What organisms play a major role in both the nitrogen and carbon cycles?

Answer 18

decomposers like fungi and bacteria

Question 19

How does carbon go from the air into living things in the carbon cycle?

Answer 19

Photosynthesis by plants, algae, and cyanobacteria

Question 20

What is a large area or geographical region with distinct plant and animal groups adapted to that environment?

Answer 20

Biome

Question 21

What is the zone of life on Earth, total of all ecosystems on Earth?

Answer 21

Biosphere

Question 22

What is a biotic factor? Give an example.

Answer 22

Any living thing in an ecosystem Examples: humans, deer, dogs, cats, sharks, sponges

Question 23

What are different populations of organisms acting in a shared environment?

Answer 23

Community

Question 24

What level would you be studying if you were studying all living things in Mellon pond?

Answer 24

Community level

Question 25

What is competition? What do organisms compete for?

Answer 25

When individuals or groups of organisms fight for similar resources necessary for life. Examples are competing for territory, mates, water, and food

Question 26

What is a consumer?

Answer 26

Any organism that obtains their energy by feeding on other organisms or their remains.

Question 27

What consumers eat only meats?

Answer 27

Carnivores

Question 28

What consumers eat only plants?

Answer 28

Herbivores

Question 29

What consumers will eat both meat and plants?

Answer 29

Omnivores

Question 30

What organisms will eat dead organism's remains?

Answer 30

Decomposers

Question 31

Name two types of decomposers.

Answer 31

Bacteria and Fungi

Question 32

What consumers eat detritus?

Answer 32

detritivores

Question 33

What is the study of the relationships between organisms and their interactions with their environment?

Answer 33

Ecology

Question 34

What is a group a many different living things and their non-living components of their environment?

Answer 34

Ecosystem

Question 35

What level are you studying if you look at all living things and the air and land in a particular rainforest?

Answer 35

Ecosystem level

Question 36

A species that is found in its originating location and is generally restricted to that geographic area

Answer 36

Endemic species

Question 37

What is a process in which energy changes from one form to another form while some of the energy is lost to the environment?

Answer 37

Energy transformation

Question 38

What is a simplified path that illustrates the passing of potential chemical energy(food) from one organism to another?

Answer 38

Food chain

Question 39

What is an area that provides an organism with its basic needs for survival?

Answer 39

Habitat

Question 40

What is a chemical or physicalfactor that limits the existence, growth, abundance, or distribution of an individual organism or a population

Answer 40

Limiting factors

Question 41

What 3 things can affect the density(number) of a poipulation?

Answer 41

Number of births, number of deaths, immigration or emigration

Question 42

What is it called when a species is completely gone from the Earth?

Answer 42

extinction

Question 43

What does sterile mean?

Answer 43

Unable to make offspring

Question 44

What does fertile mean?

Answer 44

Able to produce offspring

Question 45

What is a density dependnet limiting factor in an environment ? Give examples

Answer 45

This causes limitation due to the number of organisms that are present in the population Ex: competition for resources, predation, disease

Question 46

What is a density-independent limiting factor? Give examples

Answer 46

This causes limitations that are NOT due to the # in the population...so it will happen whether there are 2 organisms or 2000 organisms Ex: weather, natural disasters

Question 47

What is a non-native species?

Answer 47

A species that has been placed in a new geographical area due to deliberate or accidental human activity

Question 48

What is primary succession?

Answer 48

When a new ecosystem occurs over time where no ecosystem had been before Starts with lichens breaking up rock....called pioneer species

Question 49

What is secondary succession?

Answer 49

When a fire or some other destruction of an ecosystem occurs and then the ecosystem returns over time

Question 50

What is symbiosis?

Answer 50

A relationship between two organisms that live closely together

Question 51

What is mutualism?

Answer 51

When both organisms benefit in a relationship

Question 52

What is parasitism?

Answer 52

When one organism benefits and the other organism is harmed

Question 53

What is commensalism?

Answer 53

When one organism benefits and the other organism is neither harmed or helped

Question 54

What is the position of an organism in relation to the flow of energy and inorganic nutrients through an ecosystrem

Answer 54

Trophic level

Question 55

What is a complex arrangement of interrelated food chains illustrating the flow of energy between interdependent organisms?

Answer 55

Food web

Question 56

What relationship is it when a bee spreads poillen for the plant and the plant provides nectar for the bee?

Answer 56

Mutualism

Question 57

What kind of relationship is it when a tape worm lives in a human and gains nutrients form the human while making the human sick?

Answer 57

Parasitism

Question 58

A model that illustrates the energy produced at multiple trophic levels in a given ecosystem.

Answer 58

Energy pyramid

Question 59

What is it called when individuals only mate within their specific habitat and nowhere else?

Answer 59

ecological isolation

Question 60

What is it called when organisms can't mate because they are active during different times of the day, or seasons, or mating periods?

Answer 60

temporal isolation

Question 61

What is it called when there are no sexual cues between repesentatives of the species?

Answer 61

behavioral isoaltion

Question 62

What is it called when their is no sperm transfer possible during an attempted mating?

Answer 62

mechanical isolation

Question 63

What kind of relationship is it when a barnacle lives on a whale and gains food from it swimming through the water, but the whale is neither harmed nor helped by the barnacle?

Answer 63

commensalism

Question 64

What kind of growth is shown on a graph that illustrates a population slowly increasing due to no predation, no disease and unlimited resources.

Answer 64

Exponential growth

Question 65

What is the study of energy flow (energy transformations) into and within living systems?

Answer 65

Bioenergetics

Question 67

What is lost as it flows though an ecosystem

Answer 67

Energy

Question 68

What organism is a pioneer species that begins primary succession of an ecosystem?

Answer 68

Lichen ...which is consists of a fungus and a photosynthetic partner growing together in a symbiotic relationship. The lichen breaks up rock to create soil.

Question 69

Question 70

How much energy is lost at each trophic level of an energy pyramid for an ecosystem?

Answer 70

10%

Question 71

What nutrient (that we learned about) does not occur in the atmosphere as a gas?

Answer 71

Phosphorous

Question 72

If a disease strikes the snake population in the ecological pyramid shown below, what will be the initial effect on the populations of hawks and rabbits?

Answer 72

Rabbit population would increase and the hawk population would decrease

Question 73

What type of relationship is shown in the graph below? What does the solid line represent? What does the dotted line represent?

Answer 73

Predator and prey relationship Solid line is prey Dotted line is predator

Question 74

What kind of growth is shown on the graph below? What conditions allow for this kind of growth?

Answer 74

Exponential growth ...unlimited resources(such as food, water, habitat) no predation and no disease allow for this kind of population growth

Question 75

What kind of growth is shown on the graph below? Explain what is occurring in this fur seal population.

Answer 75

Logistic growth From 1900 to 1940 the seal population grew because of unlimited resources but in 1940 the seal population reached its carrying capacity which is the maximum amount of organisms that the environment can support

Question 76

What processes occur to move carbon from the air and into living things in the carbon cycle?

Answer 76

Photosynthesis into plants and then feeding from plants to consumers

Question 77

What process occurs to release carbon from living things and back into the air in the carbon cycle?

Answer 77

Cell respiration

Question 78

What process moves carbon from dead organisms back into the air or soil?

Answer 78

decomposition

Question 79

What process removes nitrogen from the air and places it into the soil? What organism does this process?

Answer 79

nitrogen fixation bacteria

Question 80

What process removes nitrogen from the soil and puts it back into the air?

Answer 80

denitrification

Question 81

What process of the water cycle allows water to move from the soil into the air?

Answer 81

evaporation

Question 82

What process of the water cycle occurs when water falls from the clouds as rain, sleet, or snow?

Answer 82

precipitation

Question 83

What process of the water cycle changes water vapor into liquid?

Answer 83

condensation

Question 84

What is the original source of almost all the energy in most ecosystems?

Answer 84

Sunlight

Question 85

Only \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_of the energy stored in an organism can be passed on to the next trophic level. Of the remaining energy, some is used for the\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, and the rest is eliminated as heat.

Answer 85

10% cellular processes for life

Question 86

A biotic or abiotic resource in the environment that causes population size to decrease is a ….

Answer 86

limiting factor

Question 87

Look at the food chain above…..compared to the osprey, the perch has\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_more energy available?

Answer 87

100 X MORE ENERGY AVAILABLE

Question 88

Fill in the trophic levels for the energy pyramid shown

Answer 88

Level 1 (blue) is primary producers Level 2 (green) is primary consumer Level 3 (pink) secondary consumers Level 4 (purple) tertiary consumers Level 5 (yellow) quaternary consumers

Question 89

What gets recycled as it moves in an ecosystem?

Answer 89

matter

Question 90

What is the specific area or role / function that an organism or species has in its ecosystem

Answer 90

niche