Ecosystems/Relationships
How do abiotic factors differ from biotic factors?
Abiotic factors are non-living things while biotic factors are living things.
What is a food web?
A map that shows the energy movement throughout an ecosystem.
What is an energy pyramid?
What are limiting factors?
Factors that limit the population size that is able to live in an ecosystem.
What organisms are responsible for nitrogen fixation and denitrification? (think about what they do)
Decomposers
Why are decomposers important in an ecosystem?
What is release energy and nutrients back into the ecosystem through decomposition?
How do producers get their energy?
Producers get their energy from the sun. They are autotrophs so they are able to make their own food.
Why is there less energy available at higher trophic levels in an energy pyramid?
Does population size ever completely level out? Why or why not?
No because population size constantly fluctuates. Birth and death rates are never exactly the same so population sizes fluctuate.
Which process causes carbon to move from plants and animals to the atmosphere?
Cellular respiration
What is an example of mutualism and why?
Any example where both organisms benefit!
Explain the difference between autotrophs and heterotrophs.
Autotrophs can produce their own food and energy while heterotrophs need to eat other organisms to get their energy.
Organisms in the upper level of the energy pyramid require more energy to survive and have to eat more animals to survive. If there were too many they wouldn't be able to consume enough food to survive.
What is the carrying capacity of an ecosystem?
The amount of life an ecosystem is able to support.
What is responsible for nitrogen fixation?
Bacteria and lightning
Describe the relationship between a predator and its prey in an ecosystem.
The predator hunts and eats the prey gaining energy from it.
What happens if an animal is erased from a food web?
The animals around it will be affected. Depending on the food web there could be less producers, consumers, competition, etc. or more of these things!
What is the importance of the base of an energy pyramid?
How can competition for resources be a limiting factor?
This is a density-dependent factor. If more organisms are competing for the same resource and there is not enough to support them both, one organism will suffer.
Where does carbon spend the most time in the carbon cycle? And how do you get it out?
Carbon spends the most time as fossil fuels and is released by burning/combustion.
What is commensalism? What is an example?
Any example where one organism benefits while another is not benefited nor harmed.
How do humans impact food webs in ecosystems?
How is energy lost between trophic levels in an energy pyramid?
Through heat loss
What is an example of a density-dependent and density-independent factor?
Density-independent: weather, natural disasters, human activity
What form is nitrogen in the atmosphere and what is the form of nitrogen in the soil? Which is usable?
Nitrogen in the atmosphere is nitrogen gas (N2) while nitrogen in the soil is nitrates (NO3) and ammonia (NH3). Nitrogen in the atmosphere is unusable!