Module 2 - Principles of Ecology

Question 1

What is ecology?

Answer 1

The study of the interactions between organisms and their environments

Question 2

What is the biosphere?

Answer 2

The portion of earth that supports life

Question 3

What are biotic factors?

Answer 3

Living factors in an organism’s environment (eg. plants, animals, bacteria, insects, etc.)

Question 4

What are abiotic factors?

Answer 4

The non living factors in an environment. (eg. water, temperature, air, soil, etc.)

Question 5

What is a limiting factor?

Answer 5

Any biotic or abiotic factor that limits the numbers, reproduction, or distribution of organisms (eg. sunlight, water, space, climate, other species, etc.)

Question 6

What is tolerance?

Answer 6

The ability of any organism to survive when exposed to abiotic or biotic factors.

Question 7

What are the levels of organization in Earth?

Answer 7

1. Organism
2. Population
3. Biological community
4. Ecosystem
5. Biome
6. Biosphere

Question 8

What is a population?

Answer 8

Individual organisms of the same species living at the same time in the same area

Question 9

What is a biological community?

Answer 9

A group of populations that interact in the same geographic area at the same time

Question 10

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 10

A biological community and all abiotic factors that affect it

Question 11

What is a biome?

Answer 11

A large group of ecosystems that share the same climate and have similar types of biological communities.

Question 12

What is a habitat?

Answer 12

An area where an organism lives

Question 13

What is a niche?

Answer 13

The role an organism has in its environment. How the species meets its needs for food and shelter. How and where the species survives and reproduces.

Question 14

What is predation?

Answer 14

The act of one organism consuming another organism for food.

Question 15

When do organisms compete?

Answer 15

When organisms need to use the same resources at the same time.

Question 16

What is symbiosis?

Answer 16

A relationship in which two organisms live together in close association.

Question 17

What are the three kinds of symbiosis?

Answer 17

Mutualism
Commensalism
Parasitism

Question 18

What is mutualism?

Answer 18

A relationship where two organisms of different species benefit from each other.

Question 19

What is commensalism?

Answer 19

A relationship where one organism is benefitted and the other is neither helped nor harmed.

Question 20

What is parasitism

Answer 20

A relationship where one organism benefits and the other is harmed

Question 21

What is an autotroph?

Answer 21

An organism that captures energy from sunlight or inorganic substances

Question 22

What is a heterotroph?

Answer 22

An organism that obtains energy by consuming other organisms

Question 23

What is a herbivore?

Answer 23

A heterotroph that consumes only plants

Question 24

What are carnivores?

Answer 24

Heterotrophs that prey on other heterotrophs

Question 25

What are omnivores?

Answer 25

Heterotrophs that eat both plants and animals

Question 26

What are detritivores?

Answer 26

Heterotrophs that CONSUME dead matter

Question 27

What are decomposers?

Answer 27

BREAK DOWN dead matter

Question 28

What is a trophic level?

Answer 28

Steps in a food web or chain. The first trophic level (autotrophs) make their own food from energy from the sun or chemicals, every trophic level after that gets their energy from the level before it.

Question 29

What is a food chain?

Answer 29

A simple model that shows how energy flows in an ecosystem.

Question 30

What is a food web?

Answer 30

A model that shows all possible feeding relationships in an ecosystem

Question 31

What is an ecological pyramid?

Answer 31

A diagram that represents each trophic level, showing the loss of energy and biomass in higher level.

Question 32

What is biomass?

Answer 32

The total mass of living matter in each trophic level

Question 33

What is matter?

Answer 33

Anything that takes up space and has mass. Cannot be created or destroyed.

Question 34

What is a nutrient?

Answer 34

A chemical substance that an organism needs to perform life processes

Question 35

What is the biogeochemical cycle?

Answer 35

The combination of biological, geological, and chemical processes that exchange matter through the biosphere

Question 36

What are the steps of the water cycle?

Answer 36

Evaporation of water from bodies of water, soil, and plants
The water vapor rises and condenses around dust particles forming into clouds
The water droplets are too heavy and fall to the ground due to gravity in the form of precipitation

Question 37

What is the oxygen and carbon cycle?

Answer 37

Photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and release oxygen, heterotrophs convert oxygen back to carbon dioxide in respiration and use carbohydrates for nutrients

Question 38

What is the nitrogen cycle?

Answer 38

Bacteria in the soil, water, or roots of plants convert the nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form that plants can use (nitrogen fixation). Nitrogen enters the food web through these plants and organisms use it to make proteins and return it back to the soil through urine and decaying dead matter. Decomposers break down nitrogen from the organism into a nitrogen compound called ammonia. Organisms in the soil convert ammonia into a useable form of nitrogen, etc. Some bacteria in the soil change this nitrogen compound into the nitrogen gas and is released back into the air (denitrification)

Question 39

What is the phosphorus cycle?

Answer 39

Two phosphorus cycles: the short-term and the long term

Short term: phosphorus is cycled from the soil to producers to consumers and returns to the soil in waste products or dead matter.

Question 40

What is ammonia?

Answer 40

A nitrogen compound that is formed by decomposers when an organism dies.

Question 41

What is denitrification?

Answer 41

The process performed by some bacteria that changes nitrogen compounds in the soil into nitrogen gas