Life On Earth: Ecosystems, Energy in Ecosystems, Distribution of Organisms

Question 1

What is biodiversity?

Answer 1

Total variety of all living things on Earth.

Question 2

What is a habitat?

Answer 2

The place where a organism lives.

Question 3

What is a population?

Answer 3

All the members of one species living in a habitat.

Question 4

What is a community?

Answer 4

All the different organisms living in a habitat.

Question 5

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 5

All the living organisms in a habitat + the non-living components with which they interact.

Question 6

What is a producer?

Answer 6

Green plant that makes its own food by photosynthesis.

Question 7

What is a consumer?

Answer 7

Organism that eats a producer / another consumer for energy.

Question 8

What is a herbivore?

Answer 8

Organism that eats only plant material.

Question 9

What is a carnivore?

Answer 9

Organism who only eats animal material.

Question 10

What is a niche?

Answer 10

The role an organism plays within a community.

Question 11

What is an omnivore?

Answer 11

Organism that eats both plant and animal material.

Question 12

What is a predator?

Answer 12

Organism that hunts other animals for its food.

Question 13

What is a prey?

Answer 13

Organisms hunted by a predator.

Question 14

What is a species?

Answer 14

A group of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring.

Question 15

What is a food chain?

Answer 15

A diagram which shows how energy is passed on from one organism to another in an ecosystem, when they are eaten.

Question 16

What does a food chain always start with?

Answer 16

Producer

Question 17

What do the arrows in a food chain represent?

Answer 17

Direction of energy flow

Question 18

Organise these organisms into a food chain: lion, grass, zebra.

Answer 18

grass → zebra → lion.

Question 19

What are the three ways that energy is lost from a food chain?

Answer 19

Heat, movement, undigested material.

Question 20

Refer to this food chain:

zoo plankton → animal plankton → clownfish → shark.

What will happen to the number of clownfish and zooplankton if the shark becomes vegetarian?

Answer 20

Clownfish: Increase because they are not being eaten by sharks anymore.
Zooplankton: decrease because they are eaten by sharks.

Question 21

What is a pyramid of numbers?

Answer 21

Diagram that represents the number of organisms at each stage.

Question 22

What is a pyramid of energy?

Answer 22

Represents the energy available at each stage of a food chain. As energy is lost at each stage, it is always a pyramid shape.

Question 23

When will competition between organisms occur?

Answer 23

When they require the same resources but they are in short supply.

Question 24

What might animals compete for?

Answer 24

Food, water, shelter, mates

Question 25

What might plants compete for?

Answer 25

Light, water, soil nutrients, root space.

Question 26

What are the two types of competition?

Answer 26

Intraspecific and interspecific

Question 27

Give an example of intraspecific competition?

Answer 27

Polar bears fighting for one prey animal.

Question 28

Give an example of Interspecific competition.

Answer 28

Rabbits and cats fighting for shelter.

Question 29

What type of competition is more intense?

Answer 29

Intraspecific, because it is for all resources required.