Ecology Review

Question 1

Physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms.

Answer 1

Abiotic Factor

Question 2

Of, relating to, or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations.

Answer 2

Biotic Factor

Question 3

Resources or environmental conditions that limit the growth, abundance, or distribution of an organism or a population of organisms in an ecosystem.

Answer 3

Limiting Factors

Question 4

The maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment.

Answer 4

Carrying Capacity

Question 5

The place or function of a given organism within its ecosystem.

Answer 5

Niche

Question 6

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

Answer 6

Habitat

Question 7

A biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

Answer 7

Ecosystem

Question 8

A growth whose rate becomes ever more rapid in proportion to the growing total number or size.

Answer 8

Exponential Growth

Question 9

An unvarying condition in a physical process, especially as in the theory that the universe is eternal and maintained by constant creation of matter.

Answer 9

Steady State Growth

Question 10

A historic term that expressed a biological community ofplants and animals and fungi which, through the process of ecological succession the development of vegetation in an area over time, had reached a steady state.

Answer 10

Climax Community

Question 11

A change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.

Answer 11

Adaptation

Question 12

The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution.

Answer 12

Adaptation

Question 13

A community of animals, plants, or humans among whose members interbreeding occurs.

Answer 13

Population

Question 14

The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.

Answer 14

Biodiversity

Question 15

A reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period time, caused primarily by uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

Answer 15

Ocean Acidification

Question 16

The presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects.

Answer 16

Pollution