3-5

Question 1

What does sustainability mean?

Answer 1

Means that the resources from the environment can be replaced as quickly as they are used.

Question 2

What are 4 ways to reduce your ecological footprint?

Answer 2

1. Be aware of the products you consume in a typical day
2. Reduce the energy you use
3. Reduce the number of products you buy
4. Reduce the amount of garbage you produce

Question 3

What is a niche?

Answer 3

Different roles organisms have in their ecosystems.

Question 4

Can an organism have multiple niches?

Answer 4

Yes

Question 5

What 3 things do you need to determine to find an organisms niche?

Answer 5

-what it eats
- where it lives
-how it interacts with the other organisms in the same ecosystem.

Question 6

What are the 5 main niches?

Answer 6

Producers - produce food energy for themselves and others

Consumers - consume the food made by the producers

Herbivores - eat producers (plant eating niche)

Carnivores - eat other consumers (meat eating niche)

Omnivores - eat both producers and consumers

Question 7

What is a food chain?

Answer 7

a model that shows how energy stored in food passes from organism to organism

Question 8

What is energy flow?

Answer 8

the movement of energy, starting with the sun, and passing from one organism to another.

Question 9

What is a food web?

Answer 9

a combination of many different food chains, showing the interrelationships between and among many different producers and consumers in an ecosystem

Question 10

What is a food pyramid?

Answer 10

a model representing the numbers of organisms consumed at each successive level of the pyramid. The size of the level indicates the number of organisms at that level. There are always more animals being eaten than are eating

Question 11

What is biomass?

Answer 11

the total mass of all the organisms in the ecosystem

Question 12

What are scavengers?

Answer 12

organisms that feed on dead or decaying plant or animal matter

Question 13

How are scavengers and decomposers different?

Answer 13

Decomposers are different from scavengers because they do not actually eat dead material. They grow on or in the dead or waste matter, absorbing the nutrients directly into their cells, which are then recycled back into the environment

Question 14

Explain the carbon cycle

Answer 14

Plants use carbon dioxide in the air in order to make their own food.

Herbivores eat the plants and release the carbon dioxide when they exhale

Carnivores then eat the herbivores, and obtain their stored carbon

Carbon then circulates through the ecosystem

Question 15

When does pollution occur?

Answer 15

Pollution occurs when a substance is added to the environment at such a fast rate that it cannot be broken down, stored or recycled in the air, land, or water in a non-damaging form.

Question 16

What are pollutants?

Answer 16

substances that cause pollution

Question 17

How does acid rain occur?

Answer 17

Sulfur and Nitrogen at higher than normal levels in the air, which mix with water to produce acidic precipitation

Question 18

How does carbon dioxide get produced?

Answer 18

Burning of Fossil fuels puts higher than normal levels of CO2 into the atmosphere and the ozone layer (which protects us from radiation) is being depleted.

Question 19

What is DDT?

Answer 19

a pesticide that used to be used in the 1940’s – 1960’s. It killed the insects on the crops, but leaked into the water supply and began to harm organisms. It is now banned in Canada.

Question 20

What is bioaccumulation?

Answer 20

The process in which a substance builds up in a living organism from the surrounding air or water, or through the consumption of organisms that already have the substance that is being accumulated.

Question 21

What is biomagnification?

Answer 21

Increasing levels of the harmful substance in species higher up the food chain.