Populations In Ecosystems

Question 1

What are biotic factors?

Answer 1

The living factors

Question 2

What are the abiotic factors?

Answer 2

The non-living factors

Question 3

What is a biosphere?

Answer 3

The are of earth in which there are organisms living there.

Question 4

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 4

All the different populations of all the Species and the non-living conditions.

Question 5

What is a population?

Answer 5

A group of animals that live in the same area and can interbreed.

Question 6

What is a community?

Answer 6

All the populations of all the Species that live in the same habitat.

Question 7

What is a habitat?

Answer 7

The place where an organism lives within an ecosystem.

Question 8

What is the carrying capacity?

Answer 8

The maximum population size of a species that an ecosystem can support.

Question 9

What is a niche?

Answer 9

The role a species plays within a habitat. This contains their biotic interactions and their abiotic interactions, like what they eat and what they do within that ecosystem.

Question 10

What happens when two species occupy the same niche?

Answer 10

They will compete with each other and one species will be more successful compared to the other until only one species is left.

Question 11

What is an adaptation?

Answer 11

A feature that increases an organisms change of survival and reproduction.

Question 12

How do abiotic factors affect population size?

Answer 12

When things like light intensity are abundant organisms grow more quickly and reproduce successfully.

Question 13

What biotic factors affect population size?

Answer 13

1. Interspecific competition.
2. Intraspecific competition.
3. Predation

Question 14

What is intraspecific competition?

Answer 14

Competition within a species.

Question 15

How does intraspecific completion affect population sizes?

Answer 15

Because the organisms of that species are competing for the same resources, this causes a shortage in those resources meaning that the organism have less things like food so population size decreases. Then there are less organisms competing for the resources so they have more food and space so they grow faster and reproduce more.

Question 16

What is interspecific competition?

Answer 16

Competition between two different species.

Question 17

How does interspecific competition affect population size?

Answer 17

If two different species are competing for the same resource thar resource will be limiting meaning both species won’t grow and reproduce as successfully so the population size decreases. One species will be better adapted to its enviroment so it will outcompete the other species and it won’t be able to exist with the better adapted species.

Question 18

How does predation affect population size?

Answer 18

As the prey population increases the predators have more food so they grow more quickly and reproduce more so predarot population size increases. Because there are more predators eating the prey the prey population then increases which causes the predator population size to decrease as they have less food.

Question 19

What is predation?

Answer 19

When an organism kills and eats another organism.

Question 20

What is sucession?

Answer 20

The process by which an ecosystem changes over time.

Question 21

What happens during primary succession?

Answer 21

1. A pioneer species colonises a hostile environment. When the pioneer species dies and the dead organic matter is decomposed nutrients are added to the soil which makes the conditions less hostile. This means different organisms can grow there and when they die they also add nutrients to the soil which means larger organisms can grow there. When the new species grows it changes the abiotic conditions meaning the previous species can no longer grow there. This repeats until you reach the climax community.

Question 22

What is a climax community?

Answer 22

The largest and most complex community of plants and animals.

Question 23

What is the difference between primary and secondary sucession?

Answer 23

For secondary sucession the soil is still present so the pioneer species are larger.

Question 24

What is conservation?

Answer 24

The protection and management of species and habitats in a sustainable way.

Question 25

How is conservation used to manage sucession?

Answer 25

Stopping sucession and the formation of a climax community means an ecosystem can be preserved at its current stage 9f sucession.