Ecology

Question 1

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 1

The interaction of a community of living organisms with the nonliving parts of their environment

Question 2

For organisms to survive and reproduce what do they have to do?

Answer 2

Require a supply of materials from the surroundings and from the other living organisms there

Question 3

What do you plants in the community or habitat often compete for?

Answer 3

Light, space, water

Question 4

What do animals compete for?

Answer 4

food, mates, territory

Question 5

What is interdependence?

Answer 5

Within the community each species depends on other species of food, shelter, pollination, seed dispersal et. If one species is removed it can affect the whole community

Question 6

What is an example of a stable community?

Answer 6

Where all the species and environmental factors are balanced so that the population sizes remain fairly constant

Question 7

What is abiotic?

Answer 7

Nonliving

Question 8

What is biotic?

Answer 8

Living

Question 9

What Abiotic factors affect the community?

Answer 9

Light intensity, temperature, moisture levels, soil pH in mineral content, wind intensity and direction, carbon dioxide levels are plants, oxygen levels for aquatic animals

Question 10

What biotic factors affect a community?

Answer 10

Availability of food, new predators arriving, new pathogens, one species outcompeting another

Question 11

What are adaptations?

Answer 11

Features that enable them to survive in the conditions in which they normally live

Question 12

What three things can adaptations be?

Answer 12

Structural, behavioural or functional

Question 13

What are extremophiles?

Answer 13

Organisms that live in environments that are very extreme, such as high temperature, pressure, or salt concentration

Question 14

What is an example of a extremophile?

Answer 14

Bacteria living in deep sea vents

Question 15

What happens to all materials in the living world?

Answer 15

They are a recycled to provide the building blocks for the future organisms

Question 16

What is the carbon cycle?

Answer 16

Returns carbon from organisms to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide to be used by plants in photosynthesis

Question 17

What is the water cycle?

Answer 17

Provides fresh water for plants and animals on land before draining into the seas. Water is continuously evaporated and precipitated

Question 18

What is biodiversity?

Answer 18

The variety of all the different species of organisms on earth, or within an ecosystem

Question 19

What does a great biodiversity insure?

Answer 19

The stability of ecosystems by reducing the dependence of one species on another for food, shelter and the maintenance of the physical environment

Question 20

What does a rapid growth of the human population and increase in standard of living mean?

Answer 20

Increasingly more resources are used and more waste produced

Question 21

What are the 3 ways pollution can occur?

Answer 21

Water, air, land

Question 22

What does pollution do?

Answer 22

Kills plants and animals which can reduce biodiversity

Question 23

How do humans reduce the amount of land available for other animals?

Answer 23

Building, quarrying, farming and dumping waste

Question 24

What does the destruction of peat bogs mean?

Answer 24

Reduces the area of this habitat and thus the variety of the different plant, animal and microorganism species that live there

Question 25

What does the Decay or burning of the peat release?

Answer 25

Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

Question 26

Why has large-scale deforestation in tropical areas occurred?

Answer 26

Provide land for cattle and rice fields

grow crops For biofuels

Question 27

What 2 gases contribute to global warming?

Answer 27

Methane, carbon dioxide

Question 28

How Have scientists and concerned citizens put in place programs to reduce the negative effects of humans on ecosystems and biodiversity?

Answer 28

Breeding programmes for endangered species
Protection and regeneration of rare habitats
Reintroduction of field margins and hedgerows in agricultural areas
Reduction of deforestation
Recycling resources