Organism
What do we call a single living thing (for example, one frog)?
An organism
What is a population?
A group of organisms of the same species living in the same place at the same time
What is a community?
All the different populations that live and interact in the same area.
What is an ecosystem?
All the living things (biotic) and nonliving things (abiotic) in an area and their interactions
What does biotic mean?
Living or once-living parts of an environment.
Name two characteristics that all organisms share. (Think about what all organisms have to be able to do)
Eat, reproduce, grow, die, make waste.
Give an example of a population.
All the white-tailed deer in a forest.
Give an example of a community (list at least three different species)
oak trees, squirrels, beetles, and robins in a park.
Give an example of an ecosystem and name one abiotic factor in it
a pond ecosystem; abiotic factor — sunlight or water temperature.
What does abiotic mean?
Nonliving parts of an environment.
Give an example of an organism and explain one way it interacts with its environment
a honeybee; interaction — collects nectar from flowers for food and pollinates the flowers.
What could cause a population to increase?
Birth, more food etc
How is a community different from a population?
A community includes many different species (many populations) while a population is only one species.
How do producers, consumers, and decomposers interact in an ecosystem? Give a short description.
Producers make food (plants), consumers eat producers or other consumers, decomposers break down dead organisms and return nutrients to the soil.
List three biotic factors you might find in a forest.
Trees, fungi, deer (or insects, birds).
What are some things an organism might compete for?
Food, water, shelter, mate
What could cause a population to decrease?
Disease, lack of food, natural disaster etc
Describe one type of interaction between two species in a community.
A bird hunting for worms for her babies to eat.
Explain how energy flows through an ecosystem using the terms producer and consumer.
Energy enters the ecosystem when producers (plants) use sunlight to make food, then consumers eat producers or other consumers and energy moves up the food chain, with some energy lost as heat at each step.
Name three abiotic factors that can affect an ecosystem.
Sunlight, temperature, water (or soil, pH, nutrients).
Give an example of how an organism might interact with an abiotic factor?
A bear might need a cave for shelter.
Wolves eat deer. All of a sudden, the deer are hit with a disease and many die. What might happen to the wolf population?
The wolf population would decrease because they have less of a food source.
Explain how a change that removes one species from a community might affect other species.
If I remove a species, the food chain messes up. For example, removing the worms from the park, causes the birds to have a lack of food causing them to decrease in population size.
Describe how a major abiotic change (like a drought) could alter an entire ecosystem (mention effects on populations, communities).
Example — a drought reduces water, causing plant populations to drop, which reduces food for herbivores and then for carnivores; some species may die or move away, changing the community structure.
Identify whether the following are biotic or not: leaf, rock, worm, water
Leaf — biotic; rock — abiotic; worm — biotic; water — abiotic.