Ecology

Question 1

What are abiotic factors?

Answer 1

Non-living parts of an ecosystem, e.g. temperature, light intensity, moisture, wind speed, soil pH, mineral concentration, carbon-dioxide and oxygen levels.

Question 2

What is biodiversity?

Answer 2

The variety of living organisms in an ecosystem. It takes into account the number of species and population of each.

Question 3

What are biotic factors?

Answer 3

Living components of an ecosystem, e.g. food availability, pathogens, predation and competition (interspecific competition - competition between members of different species. intraspecific competition - competition between members of the same species)

Question 4

What is a community?

Answer 4

All the populations of different species living together in a particular place at a particular time.

Question 5

What is distribution?

Answer 5

The spread of living organisms, affected by environmental changes.

Question 6

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 6

The community of organisms (biotic) and non-living components (abiotic) of a particular area and how they interact with each other.

Question 7

What is a habitat?

Answer 7

The place in an ecosystem, where an organism lives.

Question 8

What is a population?

Answer 8

All the organisms of the same species living with one another in a habitat at any one time.

Question 9

What is a decomposer?

Answer 9

Organisms that release enzymes which speed up the breakdown of dead plant and animal material, e.g. bacteria and fungi.

Question 10

What is decomposition?

Answer 10

The breakdown of dead materials into simpler organic mater that can eventually be absorbed of plants. The rate at which it occurs is affected by temperature, water and oxygen content.

Question 11

What are energy transfers?

Answer 11

The flow of energy from one trophic level to the next. It is never 100% and decreases the further you move up the food chain due to not all the the organism being eaten, not all of it is digested, some of the energy being lost in the excretory products.

Question 12

What is a food chain?

Answer 12

This shows the feeding relationships between organisms and the stages of biomass transfer. The arrow represents the flow of energy between organisms.

Question 13

What is a food web?

Answer 13

Network of food chains that show how energy can flow in different ways and that animals can feed on more than one organism.

Question 14

What is the primary consumer?

Answer 14

Herbivores that consume producers in a food chain?

Question 15

What is a producer?

Answer 15

Photosynthetic organisms at the start of the food chain that provide biomass for all other organisms in the food chain.

Question 16

What is a pyramid of biomass?

Answer 16

A pyramid, with each layer of the pyramid representing the amount of mass of living material at each trophic level of a food chain. They usually start of bigger at the bottom, and get smaller at each level above.

Question 17

What is a pyramid of number?

Answer 17

A pyramid showing the numbers of each organisms at each trophic level, often looking similar to the pyramid of biomass, but if the producer is large or small, it can look quite different.

Question 18

What is a quadrat

Answer 18

A square grid used to sample populations and to determine abundance and distribution of organisms in an ecosystem.

Question 19

What is a quaternary consumer?

Answer 19

Carnivores that consume tertiary consumers.

Question 20

What is a secondary consumer?

Answer 20

Carnivores that consume primary consumers.

Question 21

What is a tertiary consumer?

Answer 21

Carnivores that consume secondary consumers.

Question 22

What is a top carnivore/apex predator?

Answer 22

An organism in a food chain/web that is not consumed by another.

Question 23

What is a trophic level?

Answer 23

The position of an organism in a food chain. Only around 10% of the energy is transferred from one level to the next.