Succession & Organization
The study of life and living organisms.
What is Biology?
The non-living factors in an organism's environment, such as temperature and water.
What are abiotic factors?
The maximum number of organisms a specific environment can support.
What is carrying capacity?
A consumer that can eat both plants and animals.
What is an omnivore?
An explanation for why or how something happens in nature, such as the explanation for gravity.
What is a scientific theory?
The level of ecological organization that includes all the different populations of species in one area.
What is a community?
A factor like severe weather (e.g., a hurricane) that limits a population's size regardless of how many individuals are present.
What is a density independent factor?
A population of bacteria reproducing every 20 minutes in a lab dish (with unlimited food) would show this type of increase.
What is exponential growth?
An organism that makes its own food through photosynthesis.
What is an autotroph?
A scientific statement that describes what happens in nature, often expressed as a mathematical formula (e.g., E=mc^2).
What is a scientific law?
A fire destroys a pine forest. This type of ecological change, which already has soil, will occur.
What is secondary succession?
Factors that limit a population more severely as the number of individuals per area increases, such as food scarcity or disease.
What are density dependent factors?
If resources like water and shelter are scarce and clumped together in a desert, the organisms' spatial pattern would most likely be this.
What is clumped dispersion?
The levels in a food chain that show the transfer of energy.
What are trophic levels?
This model is used to show the age and gender distribution of a specific population.
What is a population pyramid?
The difference between an ecosystem and a community is the inclusion of these non-living factors.
What are abiotic factors?
The ability of a deer to survive harsh winter conditions or a lack of food demonstrates this characteristic.
What is tolerance?
If a population of wolves establishes strict territories to minimize competition, their spacing pattern would be this.
What is uniform dispersion?
If a coyote eats a rabbit, and the rabbit ate grass, the coyote is considered this specific type of consumer.
What is a secondary consumer?
A population pyramid with a very wide base indicates this specific type of growth.
What is rapid population growth?
If a new island is formed by a volcanic eruption, the process of colonization starting from bare rock is this, which takes significantly longer.
What is primary succession?
If a severe drought causes a stream to dry up, forcing all organisms to crowd into a small pond, this previously density-independent factor could suddenly become density dependent.
What is water (or space)?
On a graph, this type of population growth starts fast but then levels off when it reaches the environment's carrying capacity.
What is logistic growth?
If you observe a fungus breaking down a fallen tree, this organism is performing the role of breaking down dead matter.
What is a detritivore (or decomposer)?
A developed country with a population pyramid that has a narrow base (low number of young people) is experiencing this specific type of population change.
What is negative population growth?