Ecology Basics
This is a nonliving factor in an ecosystem, such as sunlight, temperature, water, or soil.
What is an abiotic factor?
The place where an organism lives and obtains the resources it needs is called this.
What is a habitat?
Organisms that make their own food, usually using energy from sunlight, are called these.
What are autotrophs?
A simple model that shows how energy moves from one organism to another is called this.
What is a food chain?
A dog eats both meat and plants. Is it an herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore?
What is an omnivore?
This is a group of organisms of the same species living in the same area.
What is a population?
The role an organism plays in its environment, including how it uses resources, is called this.
What is a niche?
Organisms that must obtain energy by consuming other organisms are called these.
What are heterotrophs?
A model that shows multiple interconnected feeding relationships within an ecosystem is called this.
What is a food web?
A lion hunts and kills a zebra for food. This ecological interaction is called this.
What is predation?
All the populations of different species living and interacting in the same area make up this level of organization.
What is a biological community?
Two organisms have a relationship in which both benefit. This type of symbiosis is called this.
What is mutualism?
In a food chain or web, this is the direction the arrows point.
What is the direction of energy flow?
(prey->predator)
There is a food chain that consists of a fox, grass, and rabbit, identify the producer, primary consumer, and secondary consumer.
What is grass = producer, rabbit = primary consumer, and fox = secondary consumer?
The IDNR needs data on the number of white-tailed deer per square mile in Shawnee National Forest. Is the ecologist collecting quantitative or qualitative data?
What is quantitative data?
This level of organization includes all the living things and nonliving components interacting in an area.
What is an ecosystem?
In this type of symbiosis, one organism benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed.
What is commensalism?
In the food chain grass > grasshopper > frog > snake > hawk, the grasshopper is at this trophic level.
What is a the primary consumer?
In a food web, a species that disappears may affect many other organisms because organisms are connected through these relationships. Give one possible effect of the species' extinction?
What is its predators may lose a food source, its prey may increase in population, or competition among other species may change?
A species of bird can eat many different types of food and live in many different environments. Would you classify it as a generalist or specialist?
What is a generalist?
Put these in order from smallest to largest:
ecosystem, population, community, organism, biosphere.
What is organism > population > community > ecosystem > Biosphere?
A tick feeds on the blood of a dog while the tick benefits and the dog is harmed. This type of symbiosis is called this.
What is parasitism?
All members of the Felidae family, including lions, tigers, and domestic cats share this type of diet.
What is a carnivore?
Imagine that wolves are removed from a biological community. Deer populations increase because they have fewer predators. The deer then consume more vegetation, causing plant populations to decrease. What ecological concept does this demonstrate.
What is a cascading effect (trophic cascade)?
In a food web, the grass is eaten by grasshoppers and rabbits. Grasshoppers are eaten by frogs, and rabbits and frogs are eaten by snakes. If the frog population suddenly decreases, what would most likely happen to the grasshopper and grass populations?
What are grasshoppers would increase and grass would decrease?