Ecology Basics
The study of relationships between organisms and their environment.
What is ecology?
A group of the same species living together in one area.
What is a population?
A factor that restricts a population's growth.
What is a limiting factor?
An organism that eats only plants.
What is a herbivore?
The process by which plants make their own food.
What is photosynthesis?
This type of factor is living, such as plants, animals, or bacteria.
What is a biotic factor?
All the living things interacting in a specific area.
What is a community?
The maximum number of individuals an environment can support over a long period of time.
What is carrying capacity?
An organism that eats only animals.
What is a carnivore?
A large land area with a specific climate, plants, and animals, like a desert or rainforest.
What is a biome?
This type of factor is non-living, such as sunlight, water, or temperature.
What is an abiotic factor?
This level of organization includes both living and non-living things interacting in a given area.
What is an ecosystem?
This type of population growth looks like a "J" on a graph and occurs when a population has unlimited resources.
What is exponential growth?
This organism eats both plants and animals.
What is an omnivore?
What would happen to the rabbit population if their main predator's population suddenly increased?
What is the rabbit population would decrease?
An organism that makes its own food, such as a plant.
What is an autotroph?
The smallest level of ecological organization, representing a single living organism.
What is an individual?
Two examples of limiting factors that could stop a population from growing.
What are food availability, predators, disease, or water availability?
A network of interconnected food chains that shows feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
Give an example of an ecosystem and identify one biotic and one abiotic factor within it.
Answers will vary. Example: A forest ecosystem. Biotic: a deer. Abiotic: sunlight.
The two types of factors that make up an ecosystem.
What are biotic and abiotic factors?
The correct order of ecological organization from smallest to largest.
What is Individual, Population, Community, Ecosystem, and Biosphere?
The type of population growth that shows a population slowing down as it reaches the carrying capacity, looking like an "S" on a graph.
What is logistic growth?
A food web shows how this type of organism gets its energy from producers or other consumers.
What is a heterotroph?
Explain the difference between a food chain and a food web.
What is a food chain shows a single path of energy, while a food web shows many interconnected paths?