Unit 5

Question 0

What is a food chain?

Answer 0

A series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten

Question 1

What are the levels of organization?

Answer 1

Atom, molecule, cell, tissue, organ, organ system, organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biosphere

Question 2

What are food webs?

Answer 2

The feeding relationships among the various organisms in an ecosystem form a network of complex interactions

Question 3

What is a trophic level?

Answer 3

A step in a food chain or food web

Question 4

What is an ecological pyramid?

Answer 4

A diagram that shows the relative amounts of energy or matter contained within each trophic level

Question 5

What does an energy pyramid show?

Answer 5

The relative amount of energy available at each trophic level

Question 6

How much energy gets transferred to each trophic level?

Answer 6

Only 10%

Question 7

What does a biomass pyramid represent?

Answer 7

The amount of living organic matter at each trophic level

Question 8

What is biomass?

Answer 8

The total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level

Question 9

What does a pyramid of numbers show?

Answer 9

Shows the relative number of individual organisms at each trophic level

Question 10

What are the four main types of processes that move carbon through its cycle?

Answer 10

Biological, geochemical, mixed biogeochemical, and human activities

Question 11

What does the biological process do?

Answer 11

Photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition take up and release carbon and oxygen

Question 12

What does the geochemical process do?

Answer 12

Erosion and volcanic activity release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and oceans

Question 13

What does mixed biogeochemical reactions do?

Answer 13

Burial and decomposition of dead organisms and their conversion under pressure into coal and petroleum store carbon underground

Question 14

What do human activities do?

Answer 14

Mining, cutting and burning forests, and burning fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

Question 15

What is nitrogen fixation?

Answer 15

The process in which bacteria convert nitrogen gas into ammonia

Question 16

What is denitrification?

Answer 16

The process in which bacteria that convert nitrates into nitrogen gas

Question 17

What is climate?

Answer 17

Average, year after year conditions of temperature and precipitation a in a particular region

Question 18

What is a biotic factor?

Answer 18

Biological influence on organisms within an ecosystem

Question 19

What is an abiotic factor?

Answer 19

A physical, or nonliving, factor that shapes an ecosystem

Question 20

What is a niche?

Answer 20

Full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives and the way in which the organisms uses those conditions

Question 21

What is a habitat?

Answer 21

The area where an organism lives, including the biotic and abiotic factors that affect it

Question 22

What are invasive species?

Answer 22

Plants and animals that have migrated to places where they are not native

Question 23

What is symbiosis?

Answer 23

Any relationship in which two species life closely together

Question 24

What happens during mutualism?

Answer 24

Both species benefit from the relationship

Question 25

What happens during commensalism?

Answer 25

One member if the relationship benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed

Question 26

What happens during parasitism?

Answer 26

One organism lives on or inside another organism and harms it

Question 27

What is ecological succession?

Answer 27

A series of predictable changes that occurs in a community over time

Question 28

What occurs when the individuals in a population reproduce at a constant rate?

Answer 28

Exponential growth

Question 29

What occurs when a population’s growth slows or stops following a period of exponential growth?

Answer 29

Logistic growth

Question 30

What is a limiting factor?

Answer 30

A factor that causes population growth to decrease