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| The study of the interactions between organisms and their environment is called ___. | ecology |
| The combined parts of the Earth that contain life is called ____ (Basically, everywhere on Earth that life exists). | the biosphere |
| If two animals can breed together and produce fertile offspring, they are members of the same ___. | species |
| Members of the same species must be able to mate and produce ____ offspring. | fertile |
| A group of organisms that belong to the same species and live in the same general area is called a(n) ____. | population |
| A group made up of all the different species living in the same area is called a(n) ___. | community |
| The living and non-living things that interact in a certain area is called a(n) ____. | ecosystem |
| A group of ecosystems that have the same temperature and rainfall patterns is called a(n) ___. | biome |
| Another word for consumer is ____. | heterotroph |
| What do you call organisms that feed only on plants? | Herbivores |
| What do you call organisms that only feed on other animals? | Carnivores |
| What do you call organisms that feed on both plants and animals? | Omnivores |
| What do you call organisms that get energy by breaking down organic matter left over from dead organisms? | Decomposers |
| Describe how energy in an ecosystem moves? | It moves in a one-way path, from the sun or inorganic compounds, to producers and then consumers. |
| Describe how matter moves in an ecosystem? | Matter cycles through an ecosystem, going from producers to the consumers who eat the producers and eventually to decomposers who change the matter into forms the producers can use, to start the cycle all over again. |
| True or false? "Matter is used up in an ecosystem." | False (Matter keeps cycling from one type of organism to another. Atoms are never created or destroyed) |
| True or False? "Energy is used up in an ecosystem." | True (Energy travels in a one way direction, and is eventually lost as heat from the different organisms as it travels up the food chain) |
| A series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating or being eaten is called a ___. | food chain |
| _______ show the one-way flow of energy through an ecosystem. | Food chains |
| Which way do arrows point in a food chain? | They point from the organism that is being eaten towards the organism that eats them. They show which way energy is being passed along in an ecosystem.,  |
| A ______ describes the complex feeding relationships among all organisms in an ecosystem, including the decomposers. | food web,  |
| The picture below depicts a ____., | food chain, |
| The picture below depicts a ____., | food web, |
| Each step in a food chain or ecological pyramid is called a ____. | trophic level |
| The first trophic level in a food chain or ecological pyramid is made up of ____. | producers (autotrophs),  |
| If all the plants in a field were determined to contain 10,000 calories of energy, how much energy would you expect to get by eating all the animals that feed on those plants in the field? | 1000 calories (remember the 10% rule) |
| If all the herbivores in an ecosystem had a biomass of 50,000 kg, what would you expect all of the carnivores at the next trophic level to weigh all together? | 5,000 kg (remember the 10% rule) |
| Why do ecological pyramids rarely have more than 4 trophic levels? | Energy usually runs out by the 4th trophic level because 90% is used up at each level and only 10% gets passed on. |
| The original source of energy that flows through an ecosystem comes from ____. | the sun |
| The changing of water from gas form (water vapor) to liquid form is called ____. | condensation |
| The changing of water from liquid form to gas form (water vapor) at temperatures below boiling is called ___. | evaporation |
| Evaporation from the surface of plant leaves is called ____. | Transpiration |
| When water condenses and then starts to fall as either rain or snow, the process is called ____. | precipitation |
| When organisms burn their food in the presence of oxygen, the two waste products are carbon dioxide and ___. | water vapor |
| Water that ends up deep below the ground is called ___. | ground water |
| Unlike energy, matter gets _______ within and between ecosystesms. | recycled |
| Which two types of elements are the key ingredients in fertilizer, because plants need them to grow. | Nitrogen and phosphorus |
| The conversion of nitrogen from one form to another in the nitrogen cycle is carried out primarily by ___. | bacteria |
| If a nutrient is in such a short supply in an ecosystem that it affects the growth of organisms, it is called a(n) ___. | limiting nutrient |
| Carbon dioxide and water are ____ during photosynthesis. | required |
| Where in the carbon cycle is carbon stored in a process that took millions of years to build up? | Carbon took millions of years to build up underground as fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Unfortunately, it is now being released back into the atmosphere quickly over the last two hundred years as we've started burning the fossil fuels for energy |
| Why is carbon dioxide increasing in the atmosphere? | Fossil fuels containing carbon are being burned for energy (creating CO2) now-a-days. This has was not happening very much until the start of the industrial revolution. |
| The natural trapping of heat energy by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere is known as ____. | the greenhouse effect,  |
| What does this picture depict?, | The greenhouse effect, |
| The living things that help shape an ecosystem are known as _________. | biotic factors |
| The non-living things that help shape an ecosystem are known as _______. | abiotic factors |
| An organism's ______ is where it lives and includes both biotic and abiotic factors. | habitat |
| An organism's ____ is kind of like it's job, and includes the way in which an organism eats, finds shelter, and reproduces as well as the physical conditions required by the organism to survive. | niche, 
|
| ______ occurs when organisms of the same or different species attempt to use an ecological resource in the same place at the same time. | Competition |
| The type of interaction where one organism captures and eats another organism is known as _____. | predation |
| The type of relationship in which two different species of organisms live closely together is called ____. | symbiosis,
|
| Name the three types of symbiotic relationships.,
| mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism |
| The type of symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit is called ____.,
| mutualism,
|
| The type of symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits while the other species is neither helped nor harmed is called ___.,
| commensalism,
|
| The type of symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits at the expense of the other is called ____.,
| parasitism,
|
| Fleas, ticks, lice and tapeworms are examples of ____. | parasites,
|
| The organism that a parasite lives on or in is called the ____. | host |
| The series of predictable changes that occur in an ecosystem as it ages is called ____. | ecological succession,  |
| What do we call factors that cause population growth to decrease? | Limiting factors |
| Give five examples of limiting factors. | Competition, predation, parasitism and disease, unnatural climate extremes, human disturbances |
| What is a density-dependent factor? | A density-dependent factor is a limiting factor that affects denser populations more than less dense populations. |
| What is a density-independent factor? | A density-independent factor is a limiting factor that affects dense populations just as much as less dense populations. |
| Competition, predation, parasitism, and disease are all examples of density- ________ limiting factors | Density-dependent (Which means that the higher the density of organisms in the area, the greater the level of competition, predation, parasitism, and disease will be. They are dependent on the number of organisms in a certain area) |
| Unnatural climate extremes and human disturbances are 2 examples of density- _______ limiting factors | Density-independent (Which means the number of different organisms in the area doesn't make the a drought or heat wave any worse, or influence the frequency of human disturbances like an oil spill) |
| ______ is a measure of how many "different" types of life are living in a certain area. | Biodiversity (The more different types of life there are living in a certain area, the higher the biodiversity. High biodiversity is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Unfortunately, many species are going extinct, causing us to lose biodiversity, due to human activity) |
