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Scientific Inquiry
Abiotic, Biotic, and Limiting Factors
Food Webs
Types of Organisms
Lab Techniques
100
Why is it important to have a perform multiple trials in an experiment?
More trials give us a more accurate result. It makes the test more valid.
100
How are abiotic factors different from biotic factors?
abiotic factors are non-living (and were never alive)
100
In which direction do arrows point in food chains and webs?
Towards the organism receiving the energy/towards the consumer.
100
This type of organism makes its own energy
What are producers?
100
We use a triple beam balance scale to measure this.
What is mass?
200
An experiment was designed to see whether students could squeeze a clothespin more times in a minute after exercising or after resting. What would be a hypothesis for this experiment?
Students who rest will squeeze the clothespin more times/ Students who exercise will squeeze it fewer times.
200
Is soil abiotic or biotic? Explain why.
Technically it is both: it contains decomposing organisms (biotic) as well as bits of non-living rock and minerals.
200
Why is a food web more realistic than a food chain?
Food webs contain many chains while chains only show 1 possible transfer of energy. In nature, there are multiple ways that organisms may obtain food.
200
These organisms are always herbivores
What are primary consumers?
200
When measuring with a graduated cylinder, we should always locate the __________ first.
What is the meniscus?
300
When testing the effect of light on bean plant growth, what is the independent variable?
Whether light or dark is used.
300
Why is water considered a limiting factor?
When an ecosystem loses water, plants and eventually other organisms die.
300
What do the arrows represent in a food web?
They represent the transfer of energy from 1 organism to another.
300
This type of organism is responsible for breaking down dead matter so that plants may access raw nutrients in the soil.
What are decomposers?
300
Which type of variable should always go on the Y axis of a graph?
The dependent variable
400
A student tests whether listening to background music and pulse rate are related. The student designs an experiment to test this hypothesis. What would be an appropriate control for this experiment?
Measuring the pulse rate of students who are NOT listening to music.
400
Describe a limiting factor on a mouse population in forest.
Presence of predators (such as owls)/habitat loss/natural disaster/loss of a food source/disease
400
Why don't any arrows point to producers in a food web?
Producers don't need to eat, so they don't directly receive energy from other organisms.
400
Bears may be top consumers but they eat producers in addition to consumers. Therefore they are considered...
Omnivores
400
When are line graphs more useful than a bar graph?
When we are trying to observe change across time.
500
Because of human activity, carbon dioxide levels are on the rise. Elevated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tends to increase the amount of toxins present in poison ivy. How would you set up an experiment to test this idea?
Grow poison ivy in a room with normal carbon dioxide levels and measure the toxin amount. Then, grow poison ivy in a room with high carbon dioxide, measure the toxin and compare the amounts.
500
Why is natural disaster considered a density-independent limiting factor?
Natural disaster will reduce a population size no matter how many organisms are in the population to begin with.
500
These types of consumers don't have arrows pointing away from them.
What are tertiary or quaternary consumers?
500
Describe what would happen to the producer population if all the barn owls in a forest suddenly died of disease.
It would decease because rodents would no longer have a predator. With more rodents, more producers would be eaten up.
500
Why are owl pellets a useful material to examine? Give 2 reasons for full credit!
They can tell us about the diet of the owl and about the conditions of the ecosystem that the owl was living in.