Name: ___________________________________________
Per: _________ Due Date: _____________
Ecology Study Guide (Part I)
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What is ecology and what does ecology study?
Write the levels of organization from the least inclusive to the most inclusive.
How are abiotic factors different from biotic factors?
Provide an example of an abiotic factor.
Define acclimation.
How is a conformer different from a regulator?
How are specialists different from generalists?
What is a niche? What is a habitat?
What is the relationship between a niche and a habitat?
How does a producer obtain food/energy?
How does a consumer obtain food/energy?
Is a producer autotrophic or heterotrophic?
What is productivity? What ecosystem would have the highest productivity?
How is biomass different from productivity?
List the five types of heterotrophs and identify what each eats for energy.
Why are decomposers important?
What is a food chain? What is a food web?
What is a trophic level? What trophic level are producers always at?
Consumers can be no lower than the _______________ trophic level.
As food/ energy pass through a food chain, how much energy is lost?
Where does the lost energy go? Provide two answers.
Describe the significance of a keystone species.
What is an ecosystem?
Define biochemical process.
Name the three processes in which water cycles in the environment.
Circle the process(es) in which water enters the atmosphere.
26. Name the three processes in which carbon cycles through the environment.
Circle the process(es) in which energy is released.
27. Name the five processes in which nitrogen cycles through the environment.
a. In which process does atmospheric nitrogen gas become usable form?
b. What process takes ammonia to make “fertilizers” that plants can use?
c. What do decomposers do?
d. In what process does nitrogen gas return to the atmosphere?
28. Define population.
29. What are the three properties of a population?
30. List the three types of dispersion. Provide an example of each type of dispersion.
31. Sketch all three types of survivorship curves in one graph. Be sure to label what each is. Star the
type that would represent a population that produces a lot of offspring, but most die early on.
32. How is a density-independent factor different from a density dependent factor?
33. What is a limiting factor?
34. Sketch an exponential model and identify what limits this type of growth.
35. Sketch a logistic model, label the carrying capacity, and identify what limits this type of growth
a) What does it mean when a population reaches carrying capacity?
b) What does it mean when a population has zero population growth?
36. In a population of 200 guppies, 25 are born in one month and 75 die.
a. Calculate the growth rate.
b. Is the population growing or declining?
c. Determine what the population will be the next month.
37. As of right now, what type of growth model represents the human population?
38. In the beginning, what factor led to human population growth?
39. In the past few hundred years, what factors have led to the jump in human population growth