Chapter 4

Question 1

Ecosystem

Answer 1

a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

Question 2

Biotic factor

Answer 2

is any living thing that has an effect on an ecosystem. Biotic means “pertaining to life.”

Question 3

Abiotic Factor

Answer 3

abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems.

Question 4

Organism

Answer 4

an individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form.

Question 5

Species

Answer 5

a group of organisms that are closely related and can mate to produce fertile offspring; also the level of classification below genus and above sub-species. ecology.

Question 6

Population

Answer 6

a population consists of all the organisms of a given species that live in a particular area.

Question 7

Community

Answer 7

also called biological community, in biology, an interacting group of various species in a common location.

Question 8

Habitat

Answer 8

the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism.

Question 9

Natural Selection

Answer 9

the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

Question 10

Evolution

Answer 10

is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.

Question 11

Adaptation

Answer 11

it is the result of natural selection’s acting upon heritable variation over several generations.

Question 12

Artificial Selection

Answer 12

is the process by which humans choose individual organisms with certain phenotypic trait values for breeding.

Question 13

Resistance

Answer 13

that tend to restrict the biotic potential of an organism or kind of organism and impose a limit on numerical increase.

Question 14

Archaea

Answer 14

are a domain of single-celled microorganisms. They have no cell nucleus or any other organelles inside their cells.

Question 15

Bacteria

Answer 15

single-celled organisms that thrive in diverse environments. These organisms can live in soil, the ocean and inside the human gut.

Question 16

Fungus

Answer 16

Along with bacteria, fungi are important as decomposers in the soil food web.

Question 17

Protist

Answer 17

Nearly all protists exist in some type of aquatic environment, including freshwater and marine environments, damp soil, and even snow. Several protist species are parasites that infect animals or plants.

Question 18

Gymnosperm

Answer 18

a plant that has seeds unprotected by an ovary or fruit. Gymnosperms include the conifers, cycads, and ginkgo.

Question 19

Angiosperm

Answer 19

a plant that has flowers and produces seeds enclosed within a carpel. The angiosperms are a large group and include herbaceous plants, shrubs, grasses, and most trees.

Question 20

Invertebrate

Answer 20

an animal lacking a backbone, such as an arthropod, mollusk, annelid, coelenterate

Question 21

Vertebrate

Answer 21

an animal of a large group distinguished by the possession of a backbone or spinal column, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes.