Vocabulary
Abiotic Limiting Factors
Biotic Limiting Factors
Trophic Cascade
Carrying Capacity
100
A predator at the very top of its food web with no natural predators, like an orca or a lion.
Apex Predator
100
These natural disasters are examples of abiotic limiting factors. Name two.
wildfires, floods, volcanic eruptions, or hurricanes
100
This occurs when organisms, like the Red-Tailed Hawk and Barred Owl, struggle to survive using the same limited resources.
competition
100
This is the delicate balance between two populations, such as the lynx and the snowshoe hare.
Predator-prey
100
Carrying capacity is determined by all of these, both biotic and abiotic.
Limiting factors
200
The location in which an organism lives.
Habitat
200
These weather conditions are examples of abiotic limiting factors. Name two.
storms, drought, blizzards, or heat/cold
200
For a drastically increased deer population, this biotic factor would likely become limited.
food source (or food availability)
200
In the famous Yellowstone example, this animal was reintroduced, starting a trophic cascade.
Grey wolves
200
A population graph shows that after a period of rapid growth when carrying capacity is reached what will happen to the population?
It will level out or stop growing
300
A species, like the sea otter or the wolf, that has a huge impact on its ecosystem, and without it, the whole system changes.
Keystone species
300
This non-living factor is described as the available territory for nesting, hunting, and living.
limited space, space, available territory
300
This biotic factor, which can be caused by bacteria or viruses, can spread quickly and limit a dense population.
Disease
300
Which population causes the other population to increase or decrease
The predator population follows the prey population
300
As a population approaches its carrying capacity, this happens to its birth and death rates.
birth rates decrease and death rates increase
400
The maximum population size that an environment can support over a long period.
Carrying Capacity
400
In a dense forest, tall trees can block this, making it a limiting factor for plants on the forest floor.
Sunlight
400
How do human activities involving building homes, parking lots, and damming rivers impact the ecosystem acting as a limiting factor?
reduces available habitat.
400
The sea otter is a well-known keystone species in the Pacific kelp forest. Its main food source is the sea urchin, which in turn eats kelp (a type of large seaweed)
If the sea otter were removed from the food web what would happen to the population of the sea urchin?
It would increase
400
As an ecosystem approaches its carrying capacity what increases as resources become more limited?
Competition
500
This happens when a change at one level of the food chain, like removing a top predator, causes a ripple effect through the entire ecosystem.
Trophic cascade
500
A shrinking supply of this liquid is a critical abiotic limiting factor for many populations
Water
500
A lack of available prey, which are living organisms, will limit the population of their ___________. This is an example of a biotic limiting factor.
Predators
500
The sea otter is a well-known keystone species in the Pacific kelp forest. Its main food source is the sea urchin, which in turn eats kelp (a type of large seaweed)
If the sea otter were removed from the food web what would happen to the population of the kelp plant?
It would decrease because the sea urchin would eat it all.
500
At what population number does it show the carrying capacity is reached
2000