Food Webs

Question 1

Define abiotic

Answer 1

Non-living factor such as water, light, temperature

Question 2

Define biotic

Answer 2

A living factor such as food source or mating partners

Question 3

Define habitat

Answer 3

Place where an organism lives

Question 4

What 6 things does a habitat need to provide for an organism to live there

Answer 4

Food, water, shelter, suitable temperature, mating partners and gases

Question 5

Name 3 adaptations that an animal or plant would need to live in a desert environment

Answer 5

Ways to cope with lack of water, e.g. long roots or kidneys that can retain water.
Ways to cope with heat, e.g. small leaves to slow down water loss, being nocturnal.
Ways to cope with limited places to escape predators, e.g. Being nocturnal, camouflage, spikes or poison, burrows.

Question 6

Define prey

Answer 6

An animal or insect that is eaten, e.g. beetle, small animal

Question 7

Define predator

Answer 7

An animal that eats another animal, e.g. cats, foxes

Question 8

Define herbivore

Answer 8

A consumer that only eats plants, e.g. rabbit, kangaroo

Question 9

Define carnivore

Answer 9

A consumer that only eats the flesh of other animals, e.g. fox, cat

Question 10

Define omnivore

Answer 10

A consumer that eats both plants and flesh of other animals, e.g. dogs, birds

Question 11

Define opportunistic feeder

Answer 11

Taking the opportunity to feed on whatever food is available at the time, e.g. Dingoes, foxes

Question 12

Define specialist feeder

Answer 12

Has a very limited diet, e.g. koala (gum leaves only), numbats (termite eater only)

Question 13

What do the arrows in a food chain / food web indicate

Answer 13

Flow of energy through the food chain

Question 14

What is a primary consumer

Answer 14

A primary consumer gets energy by eating the producer. They are herbivores, e.g. slugs, snails

Question 15

What is a secondary consumer

Answer 15

A secondary consumer gets energy by eating the primary consumer, e.g. birds, fish

Question 16

What is a tertiary consumer

Answer 16

These are consumers in the food chain/ web that are not primary or secondary or the apex predator, e.g. snakes, fish

Question 17

What is an apex predator

Answer 17

This is the consumer in a food chain or web with no natural predators except humans, e.g. hawks or raccoons

Question 18

Why are decomposes important in a food web

Answer 18

Decomposes breakdown the remains of dead plants or animals or their waste products so the nutrients can be released back into the soil to help plants grow. They also stop piles of dead and decaying matter from building up, e.g. flys, worms

Question 19

What are scavengers

Answer 19

Scavengers eat the remains of dead or decaying plants or animals but do not release nutrients back into the soil

Question 20

Give one example of how industry has affected the environment both positively and negatively

Answer 20

Logging, produces timber for housing industry/clears forests to plant trees which destroys the habitats of plants and animals found there.
Mining, provides electricity. Mine sites clear away habitats, chemicals could be added to water supply, loose soil washes into rivers destroying the habitat.
Farming, fees population, Natural habitats destroyed to plant crops / feed animals. Pesticides used can wash into water supplies changing the ecosystems.

Question 21

Give one example of a successful introduced species - explain what it was introduced todo and why it was successful

Answer 21

Cactus moth successfully introduced to control spread of prickly pear cactus planted by settlers to feed the cochineal beetle used to due clothes red

Question 22

Give one example of an unsuccessful introduced species - why

Answer 22

Cane toad introduced to eat sugar beetle destroying sugar cane crop. Very unsuccessful as cane toads population growing as doesn’t eat the beetles but anything it can swallow and has no natural predator