Question | Answer |
Organisms are classified based on their source of energy for food. Name 3 different classes of organisms based on their source of food. | Producers, consumers and decomposers. |
What is an accidental way humans have caused change in the environment? | Pollutants from sewage, waste, and chemical change the air, land, and balance of nature. |
What is meant by the term limiting factor? | Conditions in the environment that put a limit on the size of a population and its growth, like the amount of food available. |
What does "range" mean? | Describes an area where a type of plant or animal population is found. |
What does the term "carrying capacity" mean? | Refers to the largest population size that can be supported by the available resources in the area. |
What is a producer? | An organism that obtains its own food using the Sun's energy, like a plant. |
What is a consumer? | An organism that obtains food by eating other organisms, like a human eats cow or chicken. |
Herbivore | Consumers that eat only plants, like a rabbit. |
Carnivore | Consumers that eat only meat, like a hawk. |
Omnivore | Consumers that eat BOTH plant and animals, like humans. |
Decomposer | Organisms that break down the wastes or remains of other organisms like bacteria or fungi. |
Population | A group of the same kinds of organisms living in a certain place, like fox in a forest. |
Community | All the populations that live in a certain place and can interact with one another; like zebras interacting with wildebeest and grasses. |
Ecosystem | A group of communities interacting with each other and the nonliving (abiotic) parts of the environment; like, fish living in a pond with rocks. |
Abiotic | Non-living things in an ecosystem (like air, soil, rocks, etc.) |
Biotic | All living things in an ecosystem;like animals and plants. |
Population example in the Great Lakes Region | Lake Sturgeon in the Detroit River or Salmon in Lake Michigan. |
Community example in the Great Lakes Region | Samples of shrubs, grasses, frogs, and heron all interacting in the wetland ecosystem. |
Ecosystem example in the Great Lakes Region | Aquatic, wetland, Shorelands, Uplands, Forest Bank are all examples of these. |
Competition | Describes the struggle among organisms for resources in an ecosystem. |
Parasitism | A relationship between two different kinds of organisms in which one benefits and the other is unaffected or affected very little. |
Symbiosis | A close relationship between two organisms that may help or harm them. |
Predator | An organism that kills and eats another organism. |
Prey | An organism that is killed and eaten by another organism. |
An example of competition | Two rams competing for a mate. |
An example of parasitism between two populations in an ecosystem | Ticks, fleas, or leaches eating the blood of a host like a human or deer. |
Mutualism | A symbiotic relationship that benefits both organisms, like the yucca plant and yucca moth. |
Commensalism | A relationship when one organism benefits yet the other organism is unaffected, like a barnacle on a whale. |
Example of a predator and prey relationship. | A spider hunting a fly. |
Bacteria | A decomposer that is a simple one-celled organism that thrives by living on or in another organism. |
Fungus | A plant-like organism that lacks chlorophyll and must use plant or animal waste as their food source – mushroom. |