(Kelly) Wan Mei Wu

Biology
Period 2
September 28, 2010
Review Sheet for the Ecology Unit Exam

1. Ecology: the scientific study of how organism interact with their environments
2. Biosphere: the global ecosystem; That portion of Earth that is alive; all of life and where
it lives
3. Ecosystem: all the organisms a given area, along with the abiotic factors with which they
interact: a biological community and its physical environment.
4. Abiotic: nonliving
5. Biotic: living, relating to life and living organisms
6. Food chain: a sequence of good transfers from producers through several levels of
consumers in an ecosystem.
7. Food web: a network of interconnecting food chains.
8. Community: an assemblage of all the organisms living together and potentially
interacting in a particular area.
9. Population: a group of interacting individuals belonging to one species and living in the
same geographic area.
10. habitat: a place where an organism lives
11. Niche: the population’s role in its community; the sum total of a population’s use of the
abiotic and biotic resources of its habitat.
12. competition: struggle for resources
13. predation: preying of one species on another; the relationship between two groups of
animals in which one species hunts, kills, and eats the other
14. symbiosis: a cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship between two people or
groups
15. Biomagnifications: the accumulation of persistent chemicals in the living tissues of
consumers in the food chains.
16. Succession: the series of changes that create a full-fledged plant and animal community
or the following of one thing after another.
17. trophic levels: relating to the nutritive value of food
18. Carrying capacity: the number of individuals and environment can sustain.
19. Producer: an organism that manufactures its own food from simple inorganic
substances (example: woodland shrubs)
20. Herbivore: an animal that feeds only or mainly on plants; plant eaters (example: deer)
21. Carnivore: an animal that eats other animals; meat eaters (example: mountain lions)
22. Omnivore: an animal that will feed on any type or many different types of food,
including both plants and animals. (example: humans)
23. Scavenger: an animal or other organism that feeds on dead organic matter. (example:
coyote)
24. Decomposer: an organism that breaks down the cells of dead plants and animals into
simpler substances (example: bacterium or fungus)
25. Mutualism: a relationship between two species of organisms in which both benefit
from the association. (Example: lichens are a fungus and an alga living in mutualism: The
fungus provides a protective structure, and the alga produces a carbohydrate as food for
the fungus.)
26. Commensalism: the relationship between organisms of two different species in which
one derives food or other benefits from the association while the other remains
unharmed and unaffected (example: the moras that ride attached
to sharks and other fishes. Both remoras and pilot fish
feed on the leftovers of their hosts'  meals)
27. Parasitism: symbiosis in which one organism lives as a parasite in or on another
organism (example : cold in humans)
28. R-selected species: a population is way above carrying capacity of an unstable (example:
bacteria)
29. K-selected species: selection occurring when a population is at or near the carrying
capacity of the environment, which is usually stable: tends to favor individuals  that 
successfully compete for resources and produce few,  slowly developing young,  and 
results in a stable population of long-lived individuals (example: white tailed deer)
30.
energy Trophic Level

sna
kes

toads

grasshoppers

grass
31. -Tropical forest
Climate: very humid w/ an abundance of rainfall
Animals: monkeys, insects, bats, frogs
Plants: vines, trees, shrubs
Located: near the equator
-Savanna
Climate: has dry & wet season with moderate rainfall.
 Animals: snakes, zebras, lions,
Plants: grass, forbs, trees
Located: South and North America, South Africa
-Desert
Climate: dry; little to no rainfall.
Animals: lizards, ants, snakes, hawks,
Plants: shrubs, cactus
Located: Africa, Australia, Mexico, U.S, California, Asia
-Chaparral
Climate: mild, rainy winters, and long dry summers
Animals: lizards, snakes, rodents
Plants: shrubs
Located: mid-latitude coastal areas
- Temperate Grassland
Climate: dry wet season w/ moderate rainfall.
Animals: bison, pronghorn, zebra,
Plants: grass, weed-like plants,
Located: Argentina, Uruguay, Asia, U.S
- Temperate forest
Climate: high rainfall, very cold winters, hot summers,
Animals: mice, squirrels, bear
Plants: trees: oak, birch, hickory.
Located: Europe, Australia, Asia, U.S
-Coniferous forest
Climate: cold winters, short wet summers, snowy
Animals: moose, elk, bears, squirrels, wolves, birds
Plants: pine, willow, alder
Located: U.S, Eurasia
- Tundra
Climate: extremely cold, warm summers
Animals: oxen, caribou, snow owl
Plants: shrubs, lichen, moss.
Located: arctic circle; above taiga.

32. Heredity: passing of genes to future generations

Responsiveness: reaction to change
Cell specialization: cells work together to perform individual tasks
Reproduction: recreate or expanding population
Metabolism: chemical reactions using or releasing energy.
33. Habitat alteration
Introduced species
Pollution
Population Growth
Over exploitation
34. Because we learn to adapt, we’re on the top of the food chain. Humans also can
generate more food if necessary, and find/ take over land if population growth occurs.
Also humans are able to use medicine to fight off diseases and just technology to live in
many environments. K-selected species’ population will soon be stable rather than
exponential growth.
35. The water comes from Lake Michigan. Evaporation occurs which turn the water into
clouds and when the drops get heavier, precipitation happens. Also if there’s pollution
then it becomes acid rain. The cycle makes it so that the water can travel to other areas
when the clouds move so the water ends up in different places on the earth.
36. The role of decomposers is important because without them the cycle of food web stops
and there wouldn’t be a new material made after the animal has taken the energy and
created “leftovers”.
37. The similarities could include that all three are eating the same foods. Differences could
be that the organism’s species will differentiate how it will adapt with the other species.
Also differences include: the organism’s survival depended on the habitat,
temperatures, or other elements that might have affect the chances of survival. If
P.caudatum and P.bursaria were cultured together, I think that only one will come out
victorious because it said in the example that Paramecium Aurelia and Paramecium
caudatum together, P. caudatum was invariably driven to extinction. This means that
since the P.bursaria didn’t work well together with P. caudatum then neither can coexist
together.
38. 50,000. If you catch more than half of the population, they might not survive and
eventually become extinct. It’s also enough for people to use as food and still have
enough room to replace them.
31.