Ecosystem Dynamics & Factors (LS.8.2.1)
Water, sunlight, temperature, and soil are examples of this type of non-living factor in an ecosystem.
What are abiotic factors?
An interaction where a lion hunts and eats a zebra is an example of this classic relationship.
What is predator/prey (or predation)?
Unlike animals, plants synthesize their own food using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide through this process.
What is photosynthesis?
The ultimate primary source of energy for almost all food webs on Earth.
What is the Sun?
Plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi represent this type of living or once-living component of an ecosystem.
What are biotic factors?
Bees gather nectar from flowers while simultaneously transferring pollen to help the plant reproduce—a relationship where both species benefit.
What is mutualism?
Food provides organisms with these two primary necessities needed to survive, grow, and repair body tissue.
What are energy and building materials (matter/nutrients)?
Arrows in a food web diagram point from the organism being eaten to the eater to show the direction of this.
What is energy flow (or transfer of energy)?
When resources like food and shelter are abundant, a population will typically experience this change in size.
What is population growth (or increase)?
A tick attaching itself to a dog and feeding on its blood is an example of this symbiotic interaction where one organism benefits while harming the host.
What is parasitism?
Plants rely on this specific gas absorbed through their leaves to help build glucose molecules.
What is carbon dioxide?
These organisms, such as earthworms, fungi, and bacteria, break down dead organic material to return carbon and nutrients to the soil.
What are decomposers?
This term describes the maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely based on available resources.
What is carrying capacity?
When two different bird species nest in the same forest without harming each other or relying directly on one another, they demonstrate this concept.
What is coexistence?
Animals obtain the building blocks (like proteins and carbohydrates) required for growth by engaging in this activity.
What is consuming (or eating) other organisms?
In an energy pyramid, approximately this percentage of energy is transferred from one trophic level up to the next.
What is 10 percent?
A severe drought reduces the water supply in a forest, leading to a decline in the deer population. In this scenario, water acts as this type of ecological factor.
What is a limiting factor?
Ants protecting acacia trees from herbivores while the tree provides shelter and nectar for the ants is an example of organisms working together, known as this.
What is cooperation?
Cells release energy stored in food molecules by combining glucose with oxygen during this cellular process.
What is cellular respiration?
Plants absorb water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis, illustrating how energy flow drives the cycling of these two elements.
What are water and carbon?