Biotic vs. Abiotic
This type of factor includes all living things in an ecosystem.
What are biotic factors?
This organism makes its own energy through photosynthesis.
What is a producer?
This organism hunts and eats other organisms.
What is a predator?
This is the maximum population size an environment can support.
What is carrying capacity?
This term means the variety of species in an ecosystem.
What is biodiversity?
Temperature, water, and sunlight are examples of this type of factor.
What are abiotic factors?
This trophic level contains the MOST energy in an ecosystem.
What are producers?
An increase in wolf populations would most directly affect this group of organisms.
What are herbivores (or prey like deer and elk)?
An environmental factor that causes a population to decrease or stop growing.
What is a limiting factor?
Biodiversity generally increases this characteristic of ecosystems.
What is stability (or resilience)?
Name three biotic factors found in a forest ecosystem.
What are animals, plants, bacteria...?
This organism breaks down dead material and recycles nutrients into the soil.
What is a decomposer?
This organism eats only plants and is also called a herbivore.
What is a primary consumer?
Name three limiting factors that can affect a population.
What are food, water, space, weather, disease, or predation?
This is one benefit of having high biodiversity in an ecosystem.
What is functional redundancy, greater resilience, stable food webs, or ecosystem services?
Name three abiotic factors found in a forest ecosystem.
What are water, sunlight, temperature, soil, rocks, or air....?
Energy decreases as it moves up the energy pyramid for this reason.
What is: energy is used for metabolism, movement, growth, and lost as heat?
In the predator-prey cycle, when prey populations are high, this happens to predator populations.
What is: predator populations increase because they have more food?
This is evidence from a graph that shows a population has reached carrying capacity.
What is: the population levels off and remains relatively constant (or stops growing exponentially)?
Ecosystems with high biodiversity are more stable for this reason.
What is: multiple species can perform similar roles, so losing one species has less impact on ecosystem function?
Give an example of a biotic factor affecting an abiotic factor.
What is trees providing shade that lowers soil temperature?
If producers have 10,000 kcal of energy, calculate how much energy tertiary consumers receive.
What is 10 kcal? (Producers: 10,000 → Primary: 1,000 → Secondary: 100 → Tertiary: 10)
Explain what happens in a complete predator-prey cycle, starting with high prey populations.
What is: High prey → predators increase → prey decrease → predators decrease → prey increase again (cycle repeats)?
Explain what would happen to a population if a drought reduced the availability of water and vegetation in the ecosystem.
What is: the population would decrease because the carrying capacity would be lowered due to fewer resources?
When wolves were removed from Yellowstone, this happened to the ecosystem.
What is: elk populations exploded, plants were destroyed, beavers disappeared, and the ecosystem collapsed (then recovered when wolves returned)?