Ecosystem Vocabulary
What is an organism?
Answer: One individual living thing.
Name one resource that all animals need to survive.
Answer: Water, food, shelter, or space.
What is competition in an ecosystem?
Answer: When organisms try to get the same limited resource.
A lion hunts and eats a zebra. What interaction is this?
Answer: Predation.
Is sunlight biotic or abiotic?
Answer: Abiotic.
What is a population?
Answer: A group of the same species living in the same area.
What resource do plants compete for that comes from the Sun?
Answer: Sunlight.
Two lions hunt the same prey. What type of interaction is occurring?
Answer: Competition.
A bee gets nectar from a flower while helping the flower reproduce. What interaction is this?
Answer: Mutualism.
Is a mushroom biotic or abiotic?
Answer: Biotic.
What is an ecosystem?
Answer: All the living and nonliving things interacting in an area.
Two birds are trying to eat the same limited supply of seeds. What are they competing for?
Answer: Food.
Can organisms of the same species compete with each other?
Answer: Yes.
A tick feeds on a dog and harms it. What interaction is this?
Answer: Parasitism.
A rabbit population increases. What might happen to the amount of grass available?
Answer: It may decrease because more rabbits are eating it.
What is a biotic factor? Give one example.
Answer: A living part of an ecosystem, such as a plant, animal, fungus, or bacteria.
Why can limited resources cause competition?
Answer: There may not be enough resources for every organism.
Can organisms of different species compete with each other?
Answer: Yes.
A bird builds its nest in a tree. The bird benefits while the tree is not helped or harmed. What interaction is this?
Answer: Commensalism.
A new species enters an ecosystem and eats the same food as a native species. What might happen?
Answer: Competition may increase because both species need the same resource.
What is an abiotic factor? Give two examples.
Answer: A nonliving part of an ecosystem, such as water, sunlight, soil, temperature, or air.
A drought causes a pond to become much smaller. Name two resources organisms may now compete for more.
Answer: Water, food, space, or shelter.
Two plants grow close together. One grows taller and blocks sunlight from the other. Explain the competition.
Answer: The plants are competing for sunlight, and the taller plant gets more of the limited resource.
What is the difference between mutualism and parasitism?
Answer: In mutualism, both organisms benefit. In parasitism, one benefits while the other is harmed.
A drought reduces the amount of water and plants in an ecosystem. Explain how this could affect animal populations.
Answer: Animals would have fewer resources, competition could increase, and some populations may decrease, move away, or have difficulty surviving.