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Biology GCSE Paper 2 > Topic 7- Ecology > Flashcards

Topic 7- Ecology Flashcards

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1
Q

What is a habitat?

A

The place where an organism lives.

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2
Q

What is a population?

A

All the organisms of one species living in a habitat.

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3
Q

What is a community?

A

The populations of different species living in a habitat.

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4
Q

What are abiotic factors?

A

Non-living factors of the environment, eg. temperature.

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5
Q

What are biotic factors?

A

Living factors of the environment, eg. food.

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6
Q

What is an ecosystem?

A

The interaction of a community of living organisms (biotic) with the non-living (abiotic) parts of their environment.

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7
Q

What resources do plants compete for?

A

Light, space, water, mineral ions (nutrients) from soil.

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8
Q

What resources do animals compete for?

A

Space (territory), food, water and mates.

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9
Q

What is interdependence?

A

In a community, each species depends on other species for things such as food, shelter, pollination and seed dispersal.

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10
Q

What does interdependence cause?

A

Any major change in the ecosystem can have far reaching effects.

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11
Q

Why are changes in a food web diffucult to predict accurately?

A

They are very complex.

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12
Q

What are stable communities?

A

In some communities, all the species and environmental factors are in balance so that the population sizes are roughly constant.

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13
Q

What are examples of stable communities?

A

Tropical rainforests and ancient oak woodlands.

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14
Q

What are examples of abiotic factors?

A

Moisture level, light intensity, temperature, carbon dioxide level (for plants), wind intensity and direction, oxygen level (for aquatic animals), soil and mineral content.

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15
Q

How can decreases in light intensity, temperature or carbon dioxide levels affect population sizes?

A

Can decrease the rate of photosynthesis in a plant species which can effect plant growth and cause a decrease in a population size.

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16
Q

How can decreases in the mineral content of soil affect population sizes?

A

Can cause nutrient deficiencies which can affect plant growth and cause a decrease in the population size.

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17
Q

What are examples of biotic factors that can vary an ecosystem?

A

New predators, competition, new pathogens and food availability.

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18
Q

What change can a new predator make to an ecosystem?

A

Decrease the prey population.

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19
Q

What are adaptations?

A

Organisms are adapted to live in different environmental conditions. Adaptations are the features or charactistics that allow them to do this.

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20
Q

What are the three types of adaptations?

A

Structural, behavioural and functional.

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21
Q

What are structural adaptations?

A

Features of an organisms body structure such as shape or colour.

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22
Q

What are examples of structural adaptations?

A

Arctic animals have white fur to camoflage in the snow to avoid predators and sneak up on prey.
Animals that live in cold places have a thick layer of blubber and a low surface area to volume ratio to help retain heat.
Animals that live in hot places have a thin layer of fat and a large surface area to volume ratio to help them lose heat.

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23
Q

What are behavioural adaptations?

A

The ways that organisms behave.

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24
Q

What is an example of a behavioural adaptation?

A

Many species migrate to warmer climates during the winter to avoid the problems of living in cold conditions.

25
Q

What are functional adaptations?

A

Things that go on inside an organism’s body that can be related to processes like reproduction and metabolism.

26
Q

What are examples of functional adaptations?

A

Desert animals conserve water by producing very little sweat and small amounts of concentrated urine. Brown bears hibernate over the winter, they lower their metabolism which consveres energy, so they don’t have to hunt.

27
Q

Which microorganisms have a huge variety of adaptations so they can live in a wide range of environments?

A

Extremophiles- adapted to live in very extreme conditions. Some live at high temperatures (eg. hot volcano vents), others live in places with a high salt concentrations (eg. very salty lake) or at high pressure (eg. deep sea vents).

28
Q

What do food chains always start with?

A

A producer.

29
Q

What is a producer?

A

Organisms that make (produce) their own food by photosynethesis using energy from the sun. Normally green plants or algae - make glucose by photosynthesis.

30
Q

What is a plants biomass?

A

When green plants produce glucse, some of it is used to make other biological molecules. These biologicals are biomass - the mass of living material. It is energy stored in the plant.

31
Q

How is energy transferred through living organisms in an ecosystem?

A

When organisms eat other organisms.

32
Q

Who are producers eaten by?

A

Primary consumers.

33
Q

Who are primary consumers eaten by?

A

Secondary consumers.

34
Q

Who are secondary consumers eaten by?

A

Tertiary consumers.

35
Q

What are consumers?

A

Organisms that eat other organisms.

36
Q

What are predators?

A

Consumers that hunt and kill other animals.

37
Q

What are prey?

A

What predators eat.

38
Q

What is the population of any species usually limited by?

A

The amount of food available.

39
Q

If the population of the prey increase, what effect will this have on the predator population?

A

It will increase.

40
Q

If the population of the predators increase, what effect will this have on the prey population?

A

It will decrease.

41
Q

Why are predator-prey cycles always out of phase wil each other?

A

It takes a while for one population to respond to changes in the other population. eg, takes time to reproduce.

42
Q

What are trophic levels?

A

The different stages of a food chain. They consist of one or more organism that perform a specific role in the food chain.

43
Q

What tropic level are producers?

A

Tropic level 1.

44
Q

What does trophic level 2 contain?

A

Primary consumers - herbivores that eat the plants and algae.

45
Q

What are herbivores?

A

Organisms that only eat plants and algae.

46
Q

What does trophic level 3 contain?

A

Secondary consumers - carnivores that eat the primary consumers.

47
Q

What are carnivores?

A

Meat eaters.

48
Q

What does trophic level 4 contain?

A

Tertiary consumers - carnivores that eat other carnivores.

49
Q

What are apex predators?

A

Carnivores that have no predators so are at the top of the food chain, always in the highest trophic level.

50
Q

What are decomposers?

A

Bacteria and fungi that decompose any dead plant or animal material left in an environment. They do this by secreting enzymes that break the dead stuff down into small soluble food molecules. These then diffuse into the microorganisms.

51
Q

What happens to energy and biomass as you move up the trophic levels?

A

It decreases. There are also fewer organisms.

52
Q

What does each bar on a pyramid of biomass show?

A

The relative mass of living material at a trophic level (total weight).

53
Q

What is the source of energy for nearly all life on earth?

A

Sun.

54
Q

Of the energy that hits the producers, what percentage is transferred for photosynethesis?

A

1%.

55
Q

What does biomass store?

A

Energy.

56
Q

How much biomass is transferred from one trophic level to the next?

A

10%.

57
Q

Why is biomass lost?

A
  • Organisms don’t each every part of the organism they’re consuming.
  • Organisms don’t absorb all the stuff they ingest. The stuff they don’t absorb is egested as faeces.
  • Converted into other substances that is lost as waste.
58
Q

How can you calculate the efficiency of biomass transfer?

A

efficiency= biomass transferred to the next level/biomass available at the previous level x100.

Biology GCSE Paper 2 (3 decks)

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