Food Webs, Wow!
This term describes organisms that make their own food through photosynthesis and form the base of most food webs.
What is a Producer?
This term refers to the maximum number of organisms of a species an ecosystem can support indefinitely.
What is Carrying Capacity?
This interaction involves one organism benefiting while the other is harmed. The organism that benefits feeds on the other without killing it.
What is Parasitism?
Wolves leaving their family in search of a new pack are an example of this.
What is dispersal?
This term means something is living.
What is Biotic?
These organisms feed directly on producers and are the first level of consumers in a food web.
What are Primary Consumers?
These two processes decrease a population's size.
What are deaths and emigration?
This interaction type is a lose-lose situation, but necessary for survival for almost all organisms.
What is Competition?
Your family working together to clean the house is an example of this.
What is cooperative group behavior?
This term means something is non-living but still important to an ecosystem.
What is Abiotic?
What is the sun?
List three factors that influence a population’s carrying capacity.
What are food availability, space/habitat, and predation?
An orchid growing on a tree branch for support without harming the tree demonstrates this type of interaction.
What is Commensalism?
This behavior is a seasonal or regular movement from one region to another, such as salmon swimming upstream to spawn. It usually happens in big groups.
What is Migration?
Meerkats taking turns on guard duty are an example of this.
What is Altruism?
Animals that are omnivores are both of these types of consumers.
What are primary and secondary consumers?
Name one consequence of removing a predator from an ecosystem.
What is prey population explosion or habitat degradation?
When you go to a restaurant, you get a yummy meal (+) and the restaurant gets your money (+). This is an example of _________.
What is mutualism?
This is a reason animals do dispersal.
What are 1) lessening competition with family members and 2) searching for new mates?
Yellowstone wolves are an example of this kind of species that has a disproportionate effect on its ecosystem.
What is a Keystone Species?
In a few sentences, answer the following question as thoroughly as possible: How are materials and energy transferred through ecosystems?
:D
In a few sentences, answer the following question as thoroughly as possible: What factors influence growth and stability of populations in an ecosystem?
:D
amount of resources, predators, land, diversity within the population, presence of Keystone species, how often the ecosystem changes, etc.
In a few sentences, answer the following question as thoroughly as possible: How do organisms interact within an ecosystem?
all the interaction types, food web relationships affecting population sizes, etc.
In a few sentences, answer the following question as thoroughly as possible: How do organisms interact WITH the environment?
habitat, niche, migration, dispersal, too many primary consumers = not enough plants, ecosystem engineers (beavers, elephants), organism traits determined by the environment.
Give two examples of how changes to an ecosystem can affect biodiversity and relationships between organisms.
introduction of invasive species, loss of habitat, removal of keystone species, new available food sources, etc.