Populations and Communities Study Guide
Chapter 12
1. What is an organism?
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2. What does an organism get from its environment?
________________________________________________________________________
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3. An environment that provides all things an organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce
is called its __________________________________________________________
4. Every habitat has two parts; biotic and abiotic. List 3 of each in YOUR habitat below.
Biotic factors
Abiotic factors
5. Below, list the steps of how an ecosystem is organized from simplest to most complex.
______________
_______________
_____________
_______________
6. A community of organisms along with the non-living (abiotic) environment, makes up
an ______________________________.
7. Two organisms that can mate and have viable offspring are of the same _____________.
8. All different populations that live together in an area make up a ___________________.
9. The study of how organisms interact with one another and with their environment is
called _____________________________________.
10. If the birth rate is greater than the death rate of a population, what will happen to the
population’s size? _________________________________________________
11. A wolf fighting for the position of Alph male in a pack, losing, and leaving the pack is an
example of immigration or emigration?
12. When an animal moves into a new population, this is an example of immigration or
emigration?
13. An example of an abiotic factor in an ecosystem is –
a. Insects
b. Trees
c. Fungi
d. Sunlight
14. Look at the graph below to answer the questions.
a) Which population was greater, wolf or moose, in 1975? ______________
b) When the wolf population was at its highest in 1980, what was the moose
population? ____________________________________
c) Why do you think the wolf-moose population sizes keep alternating, and
when one is high, the other is low?
_______________________________________________________________
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d) Which species is the predator? ___________________________________
e) Which species is the prey? ______________________________________
15. What is a limiting factor for a population?
________________________________________________________________________
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16. The role of an organism in its habitat is called its _____________________________
17. If two organisms occupy the same niche, one may die off. This struggle for limited
resources is known as _______________________________________________.
18. When one organism kills another for food/resources, this is known as
______________________________________________________________
19. Below, label the predator/prey in the picture.
Predator _____________________________
Predator _______________________
Prey ________________________________
Prey __________________________
Predator ____________________________
Predator ______________________
Prey _______________________________
Prey _________________________
20. Identify the 3 types of symbiosis below: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism
_____________________
_______________
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21. The type of symbiosis when one organism benefits and the other neither benefits or is
harmed is called ______________________________________________________
22. The type of symbiosis when one organism benefits and the other is harmed is called
________________________________________________________________
23. Birds and insects sharing the same tree as a shelter is an example of –
a. Homeostasis
b. Cyclic behavior
c. Cooperative behavior
d. Competitive behavior
24. The first species to populate an area once uninhabited by living organisms, are called?
_________________________________________
25. This type of succession happens when an ecosystem has been disturbed, but there is soil
and still some organisms that exist __________________________________________
26. Some causes of the type of succession from question #25, might be: __________,
_____________________, ________________, and ______________________.
27. This type of succession happens where no soil exists and no living organisms live.
______________________________________________________________
28. Label the pictures below as ready to go through primary or secondary succession.
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