Ecology Basics
Study of ecosystems
What is ecology?
The primary source of energy for most ecosystems.
What is the Sun?
Organisms that synthesize their own energy using sunlight.
What are producers or autotrophs?
Relationship where both organisms benefit.
What is mutualism?
The two types of adaptations.
What are physical and behavioral?
Factors that restrict the growth, distribution, and abundance of a population within an ecosystem.
What are limiting factors?
What is primary succession?
A group of organisms that can reproduce with one another and produce fertile offspring.
What is a species?
The trophic level in a food pyramid that contains the most energy.
What are producers?
Organisms that must consume other organisms to obtain energy.
What are consumers or heterotrophs?
What is parasitism?
When an organism is able to blend into its surroundings.
What is camouflage?
The maximum number of organisms that can be supported by an ecosystem.
What is carrying capacity?
The first species to inhabit a new area at the beginning of succession.
What are pioneer species?
All the members of a species inhabiting a given location.
What is a population?
These symbols represent the flow of energy in a food chain or web.
What are arrows?
Organisms that break down organic matter.
What are decomposers?
Relationship where one organism benefits and the other is unaffected.
What is commensalism?
What is mimicry?
Limiting factor that was seen several times in "The Serengeti Rules." *Hint-sea otters, bass, wild dogs.
What is predation?
Stable group of plants and animals that is the end result of succession.
What is climax community?
All the parts of Earth where life exists.
What is the Biosphere?
The amount of energy that is passed from one level of the energy pyramid to the next.
What is 10%?
Without this species, an ecosystem would be dramatically different, or cease to exist altogether.
What is a keystone species?
The term used to describe different species fighting for limited resources.
What is interspecific competition?
Armadillos, snails, cacti, hedgehogs, and porcupines all have this adaptation in common.
What are protective coverings?
Type of growth rate that occurs when resources are unlimited.
What is exponential growth?
This type of succession occurs when the ecosystem is working to restore the conditions of its original community.
What is secondary succession?
Group of ecosystems that share the same climate and have similar types of communities.
What is a biome?
The tertiary consumer in the following scenario:
The grass is eaten by the grasshopper, which is eaten by the frog, which is eaten by the snake, which is eaten by the eagle.
What is the snake?
The likely result of removing producers from an ecosystem.
What is the decline of the consumer population due to lack of food source?
The term used to describe two organisms of the same species fighting for limited resources.
What is intraspecific competition?
When animals move from one place to another due to seasonal changes or following food/water sources.
What is migration?
Type of growth rate that initially grows rapidly, but slows as it approaches carrying capacity.
What is logistic growth?
Biodiversity does this as primary or secondary succession progresses.
What is increase?
All 6 levels of the ecological hierarchy in order from smallest to largest.
What is Individual, Population, Community, Ecosystem, Biome, Biosphere?
Increase in concentration of harmful substances in the higher levels of a food chain.
What is biological magnification?
The species in "The Serengeti Rules" that decimated the kelp forest due to the absence of sea otters.
What are sea urchins?
The scientific term for a close, long-term biological interaction between two different species.
What is symbiosis or a symbiotic relationship?
Description of an adaptation.
What is the change in an organism's physical or behavioral traits over time in response to their changing environment?
What likely occurs when a population exceeds its carrying capacity.
What is population decline due to limited resources?
The type of succession that occurs the slowest.
What is primary succession?