Basics of Ecology
What is the study of interactions among living things and their environment?
Ecology
What does the arrow indicate in a food chain or web?
The flow of energy
This organism ONLY eats plants.
Herbivore
This cycle consists of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and seepage.
Water or Hydrological Cycle
If a bear eats a salmon, and the salmon eats an insect, and the insect eats algae, what trophic level is the bear?
A Tertiary Level Consumer
What are the levels of ecological organization from SMALLEST to LARGEST?
Organism - Population - Community - Ecosystem - Biome - Biosphere
Where do all organisms get their energy from either directly or indirectly?
The sun
This organism can eat EITHER plants or animals.
Omnivore
This nutrient cycles through both living and non-living parts of an ecosystem, and is vital in making organic compounds found in living things.
Carbon
what are the 4 main nutrients that cycle through an ecosystem?
Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus
This is the term for a living factor in an ecosystem.
Biotic Factor
This is the name for an organism that makes its own food.
Producer or Autotroph
Food chains show only a single flow of energy from producer through consumers.
Food webs show all possible feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
About 10%
What is the term that identifies the indirect effect a top predator can have on a producer in an ecosystem?
Trophic Cascade
This is a non-living factor in an ecosystem.
Abiotic Factor
This is the name for an organism that needs to eat other living things for energy.
Consumer or Heterotroph
Primary Consumer
What is the difference between an energy pyramid, and a pyramid of numbers for an ecosystem?
Energy pyramid shows amount of energy moving from one level to the next.
Numbers pyramid shows number of individuals.
What is the difference between a generalist and a specialist?
Generalist - varying diet
Specialist - specific diet - primarily 1 thing
This is the variety of living things in a given area.
Biodiversity
These are the levels of nourishment in either a food chain or food web.
Trophic Levels
What trophic level stabilizes an ecosystem?
Producers
This type of nutrient must go through fixation in order to be used by plants.
Nitrogen
If only 10% of all energy is transferred to the next trophic level, where does the other 90% go?
It is lost as heat to the atmosphere.