Ecology Data Set
1. Conservation is the process of saving or protecting a natural resource. A natural
resource is any type of material or energy that humans use to meet their needs. Natural
resources that humans take from their environment include water, food, wood, stone,
metal, and minerals. (Text 99 & 84)
2. The idea of wilderness conservation would have seemed strange to anyone living before
the 1800s. In the late 1800s, as smoke from railroads and factories rose in American
skies, scientists, artists, even presidents began the work of setting aside land as parks
and reservations to protect natural landscapes. Industries learned to harvest and
nurture forests rather than clearing them. (Text 74)
3. Mountain gorillas are one of the rarest cloud-forest animals; there may only be 700 of
them left in the wild. Several conservation charities joined to form the International
Conservation Program to help save them. (EM 161)
4. Tourists can be bad news for animals such as turtles that need quiet and darkness to lay
their eggs. However, tourists are becoming interested in, and concerned for, the
wildlife of the places they visit. Tourist centers buy turtle eggs from local collectors and
then hatch and rear them, eventually releasing them into the wild. Tourism might just
be the thing that saves turtles. (EM 220 & 221)
5. Around the world, individuals and companies are expressing more interest in
sustainable practices – ways of living and doing business that use natural resources
without using them up. (Text 102)
6. Three ways to practice sustainability include: developing new technology, reducing
resource use, and creating less waste. (Text 102)
7. We can only sustain the Earth’s resources by consuming them at the same rate – or
more slowly – than they are being produced. (EM 37)
8. The worst case of humans overusing a natural resource at the moment is sea fishing.
The fish cannot reproduce fast enough to replace the fish that are eaten. Fish species
many of us eat regularly, like cod and tuna, may never recover. (EM 37)
9. Ecology is the scientific study of how organisms (living things) interact with their
environment and all the other organisms that live in that environment. (Text 9)
10. Living things depend on their environment to meet their needs. You can think of those
needs in terms of the material, or matter, required by all living things. (Text 16)
11. All organisms take in water and food in order to survive, all of the materials an organism
takes in are returned to the ecosystem either while the organism is alive, or after it dies.
(Text 16)
12. Scientists use the word ecosystem to describe a particular environment and all the living
things that are supported by it. An ecosystem can be as small as a pond or as big as a
desert. What is important in an ecosystem is how the living parts of the ecosystem
relate to the nonliving parts. (Text 9)
13. The movement of matter through the living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem is a
continuous process, a cycle. A cycle happens over and over again. (Text 16)
14. Matter in an ecosystem may change form, but it never leaves the ecosystem, so the
matter is said to cycle through the ecosystem. Three of the most important cycles in
ecosystems involve water, carbon, and nitrogen. (Text 16)
15. All living things in an environment meet their needs through interactions. An
interaction occurs when two or more things act in ways that affect one another. (Text
xix)
16. Trees and other forest plants can meet their need for energy and materials through
interactions with materials in soil and with air and light from the Sun. (Text xix)
17. Animals like moose meet their need for food through interactions with other living
things. The moose gets food by eating leaves off trees and other plants. In turn, the
moose becomes food for wolves. (Text xix)
18. The environment is everything that surrounds a living thing. An environment is made up
of both living and nonliving factors. (Text xix & 16)
19. The environment in a forest may include rainfall, rocks, soil, animals, and trees. (Text
xix)
20. Across Earth there are large geographic areas that are similar in climate and that have
similar types of plants and animals. Each of these regions is classified as a biome (BYohm). There are six major land biomes on Earth. (Text 30)
21. Biomes represent very large areas, which means that there will be many ecosystems
within a biome. (Text 30)
22. Climate is an important factor in land biomes. Climate describes the long-term weather
patterns of a region, such as average yearly rainfall and temperature ranges. Climate
also affects soil type. (Text 30)
23. Each biome is characterized by distinctive kinds of plants and animals and by a specific
climate. (World Book B324)
24. There are six land biomes: tundra, taiga, desert, grassland, temperate forest, and
tropical forest. (Text 31)
25. There are six aquatic biomes. Three of them are freshwater biomes (rivers and streams,
lakes and ponds, and estuaries), and three of them are marine or saltwater biomes
(coastal, upper open ocean, and deep ocean). (Text 36 & 37)
26. If you go to the northernmost regions of Earth, you will find two biomes – tundra and
taiga – that are characterized by long cold winters and short cool summers. They have
similar temperature ranges. (Text 31)
27. The taiga receives more precipitation than the tundra. Since the taiga receives more
snow, the ground is insulated by the snow, keeping the ground from freezing. (Text 32)
28. The tundra doesn’t get much precipitation, but the area is wet because cold
temperatures keep the water from evaporating. One of the important characteristics of
tundra is permafrost, a deep layer of permanently frozen soil that lies just below the
surface of the soil. (Text 31)
29. Deserts and grasslands biomes do not get enough precipitation to support trees. (Text
32)
30. Some deserts are cold and some deserts are hot, but all deserts are characterized by
their dry soil. Plants and animal in the desert need to be able to survive with very little
water. (Text 32)
31. Grassland biomes receive enough rainfall to grow grasses. The more rain there is, the
higher the grasses grow. The grasses support large grazing animals like bison, wild
horses, and zebra, while seeds from the grasses support rodents. (Text 32 & 33)
32. Temperate forest and tropical forest biomes are usually located in regions where more
water is available. (Text 33)
33. Temperate forests contain many deciduous (dih-SIHJ-oo-uhs) trees with leaves that
change color and fall as winter approaches. However, the wet winters and dry summers
in the Pacific Northwest support forests made up mostly of coniferous (koh-NIHF-uhruhs) trees – redwoods, spruce, and fir. These forests are referred to as temperate rain
forests. (Text 34)
34. Tropical Forests are warm enough that the trees tend to have leaves the year round.
This provides an advantage because the soil is poor in nutrients. More types of animals,
plants, and other organisms live in the tropical rain forest than anywhere else on Earth.
(Text 34)
35. The ecosystems of freshwater biomes are affected by the qualities of the landscape in
which they are found. For example, the running water of streams and rivers results
from differences in elevation. On the other hand, ponds and lakes have still water.
Ponds are shallow, while lakes are deeper. (Text 35 & 36)
36. Lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams are full of rainwater and snowmelt on its way back to
the sea. This freshwater is an important habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals.
(EM 39)
37. An estuary is the lower end of a river that feeds into the ocean, where fresh water and
salt water mix. (Text 36)
38. Marine biomes are saltwater biomes. Beaches and tidal pools are part of the coastal
ocean biome. Organisms in the upper open ocean receive less sunlight than in the
coastal ocean, and the temperatures are colder. Many types of fish and other marine
animals live in the open ocean. (Text 36 & 37)
39. The deep ocean is much colder and darker than the upper open ocean. There is no
sunlight available for photosynthesis (foh-toh-SIHN-thih-sihs) to support plant growth,
so the animals either feed on each other or on material that falls down from upper
levels of the ocean. Many organisms in deep ocean biomes can only be seen with a
microscope. (Text 37)
Sources:
McDougal Littell Science, Ecology, 2005, Grades 6-8 (AEA Curriculum Lab)
Earth Matters, David De Rothschild consultant editor, 2008 (Consultant’s Library)
World Book, vol. B