Ecology Review Sheet
Honors Biology
1. You should be able to define ecology and the different levels in an ecosystem:
niche, population, community, ecosystem, biome, and biosphere
2. Be able to relate the ecological concept of niche to what you learned in evolution. (i.e., what
happens when an organism tries to move into a niche that is already occupied by another
organism?)
3. Be able to discuss and define different symbioses that occur in a population: mutualism,
commensalism, and parasitism.
4. Be able to discuss how living things (biotic factors) interact with their environment (including
abiotic factors).
a. Understand carrying capacity
b. Understand how the rate of reproduction can affect populations
c. Be able to briefly (just in very general ways) discuss how relative warmth, salt
vs. freshwater, sunlight, oxygen levels, and soil type could affect the
organisms living in an area
5. Be able to discuss the interaction of organisms in the environment (know carnivore, herbivore,
omnivore, and decomposer; producer, consumer, predator). Be able to make and read a simple
food web, and understand what is meant by producers and various levels of consumers at the
different trophic levels.
6. Know how to read an ecological pyramid, and understand the rule of 10: just 10% of the energy
is passed from producer to primary consumer, from primary consumer to secondary consumer,
etc.
7. Define ecological succession. Know the role of pioneer organisms, and what a climax community
is.
8. Be able to discuss the following cycles of material in the environment: (You do not need to
memorize the cycles! Just get a feeling for what is happening.)
a. Carbon cycle
What is carbon used for in living things?
Where is the reservoir (where most of the carbon is found in the environment)?
What are the two cellular energetics pathways involved in the carbon cycle?
What other element besides carbon plays an important role in this cycle?
b. Nitrogen cycle
What is nitrogen used for in living things?
What is the reservoir for nitrogen in the environment?
What is the role of nitrogen-fixing (aka nitrifying) bacteria?
c. Water cycle
Know in general the water cycle. This is mainly an Earth science topic.
9. Be familiar with the descriptions of the following biomes:
a. Tropical rain forest
b. Savannah
c. Chaparral
d. Desert
e. Deciduous forest
f. Taiga
g. Tundra
Understand the role that water levels and temperature play in the biomes (for example, if you
are hot and receive a little water, you are a savannah; if you are hot and receive a lot of water
you are a tropical rainforest).
Vocabulary
Abiotic factors
Biome
Biosphere
Biotic factors
Carbon cycle
Carnivore
Carrying capacity
Chaparral
Climax community
Commensalism
Community
Consumer
Deciduous forest
Denitrifying bacteria
Desert
Ecological pyramid
Ecological succession
Ecology
Ecosystem
Food web
Herbivore
Mutualism
Niche
Nitrogen cycle
Nitrogen fixation
Omnivore
Parasitism
Pioneer organism
Population
Predator
Producer
Rule of 10
Saprophyte (or decomposer)
Savannah
Symbiosis
Taiga
Trophic level
Tropical rain forest
Tundra
Water Cycle