Interactions and Ecosystems Practice Questions
1) Define the following types of organisms based on their feeding habits:
a) Carnivore
b) Herbivore
c) Omnivore
d) Producer
e) Scavenger
2) How is the sun important to feeding relationships between living things in an ecosystem?
3) Draw a food web that includes a producer, herbivore, omnivore, carnivore, scavenger, and
decomposer. Use symbols to show how the organisms provide nutrients to other
organisms. (You can draw the food web or just write the name of the organism).
4) A food web is a model that shows the relationship between organisms. How is matter
moved between organisms in a food web?
5) What is a symbiotic relationship? Describe the three types: commensalism, mutualism, and
parasitism.
6) What is competition? Explain why competition occurs.
7) Compare and contract a decomposer and a scavenger. Identify at least one similarity and
one difference between the organisms.
8) What are four important abiotic factors in an ecosystem?
9) Describe the three forms of carbon that cycle through the carbon cycle in an ecosystem.
10)Compare how plants and animals change the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
11) How would the carbon cycle be affected if there was no sun? What processes would
impacted?
12)How does the burning of fossil fuels impact the carbon cycle?
13)Compare and contrast how a producer and a consumer obtains their energy.
14)Why is precipitation an important part of the water cycle?
15)What are the three states of matter?
16)Contrast the density of water in its solid form and its liquid form.
17)Explains what is happening to water particles during the evaporation phase of the water
cycle.
18)How would the organisms in a food web be impacted if suddenly all of the producers were
eliminated?
19)How would the carbon cycle be impacted if suddenly all of the vehicles were removed from
the earth? Would this be more harmful to the ecosystem or more beneficial to the
ecosystem? Explain.
20)How do your personal choices impact:
a) Food webs?
b) The carbon cycle?