Ecology Flashcards
Define ‘habitat’.
The place where an organism lives.
What things do animals compete for in an ecosystem?
Territory, food, water, mates
What are biotic and abiotic factors?
Abiotic - non-living factors of the environment
Biotic - living factors of the environment
What are functional adaptations?
Things that go on inside an organism’s body that can be related to processes like reproduction and metabolism.
What do food chains always start with?
Producer
Explain what happens to the population size of a predator if its prey becomes more common in an ecosystem.
The amount of predators will increase.
Explain how a quadrat can be used to investigate the distribution of clover plants in two areas.
Place a quadrat on the ground at a random point.
Count all the organisms in the quadrat.
Repeat as many times as you can.
When water vapour cools and condenses in the atmosphere, what does it change into?
Clouds
Suggest why it’s important to have high biodiversity in an ecosystem.
It make sure that ecosystems are stable because different species depend on each other (for things like shelter and food).
Name two gases of global warming.
Carbon dioxide
Methane
Give an example of how global warming could reduce biodiversity.
Distribution of wild animal and plant species may change as temperature increases and the amount of rainfall changes in different areas.
Why might humans carry out deforestation?
To get more land for things like building, quarrying, farming and dumping waste.
Explain why the destruction of peat bogs adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Plants that live in peat bogs don’t fully decay when they die, so the carbon in the plants is stored in the peat instead of being released into the atmosphere. Destroying bogs releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
