Name: 

What basic needs are provided by an organism’s habitat?

What might happen to an organism if its habitat could not meet one of its needs?

List all the biotic and abiotic factors in the following picture

Define the terms biotic factors and abiotic factors.

Explain why water and sunlight are two abiotic factors that are important to all organisms.

Would all the different kinds of organisms in a forest be considered a population or a community? Explain

How might a change in one population affect other populations in a community?

What are four methods of determining population size?

Which method of determining population size would you use to determine the number of mushrooms growing on the floor of a large forest? Explain.

Name two ways organisms join a population and two ways organisms leave a population.

Choose one of the limiting factors and describe how it limits population growth.

Suppose a population of 100 mice has produced 600 young. If 200 mice have died and there are currently 750 mice, how would you account for the extra mice?

Choose one of the limiting factors and describe how it limits population growth.

How might the limiting factor you chose affect the pigeon population in your town?

Complete the following inequality showing the relationship between carrying capacity and population size. Then explain why the inequality is true.

If population size ______ carrying capacity, then population size will decrease.

What are adaptations?

How are a snake’s sharp fangs an adaptation that helps it survive in the saguaro community?

Explain how natural selection in snakes might have led to adaptations such as sharp fangs.

What are three main ways in which organisms interact?

Give an example of each of the types of interactions that organisms have with one another.

List the three types of symbiotic relationships.

For each type of symbiotic relationship, explain how the two organisms are affected.

Some of your classroom plants are dying. Others that you planted at the same time and cared for in the same way are growing well. When you look closely at the dying plants, you see tiny mites on them. Which symbiotic relationship is likely occurring between the plants and mites? Explain.

Explain how plants and algae use sunlight. How is this process important to other living things in an ecosystem?

Describe how ecologists use the technique of sampling to estimate population size.

Give an example showing how space can be a limiting factor for a population.

What are two adaptations that prey organisms have developed to protect themselves? Describe how each adaptation protects the organism.

Explain why ecologists usually study a specific population of organisms rather than the entire species.

In a summer job working for an ecologist, you have been assigned to estimate the population of grasshoppers in a field. Propose a method and explain how you would carry out your plan.

Competition for resources in an area is usually more intense within a single species than between two different species. Suggest an explanation for this observation. (Hint: Consider how niches help organisms avoid competition.)

Lichens and mosses have just begun to grow on the rocky area shown below. Which type of succession is occurring? Explain.