Download Study Guide Chapter 3 and 4

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Study Guide: Chapter 3 and 4 - Ecology
1. What is ecology?
2. Define: Biosphere, Biome, Ecosystem, Community, Population and Species.
3. What are producers, consumers, autotrophs and heterotrophs? Give some examples.
4. Describe photosynthesis and chemosynthesis.
5. What are the three types of ecological pyramids? Describe them.
6. How is an ecological pyramid organized? What are the names of each trophic level?
7. What happens to the energy in an ecosystem? (How does energy travel up the pyramid, where does the energy
go? What do animals use the energy for?)
8. What is biomass?
9. What are food chains and food webs? What do these diagrams show?
10. What are herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, detritivores and decomposers? Give some examples of each.
11. What are the phases of the water cycle? What is transpiration?
12. What organism does all the work in the nitrogen cycle? Describe the nitrogen cycle.
13. Describe the carbon cycle. What things release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?
14. Describe the greenhouse effect. What is it? How does it happen? What are the gases called?
15. What is a limiting nutrient and how does it affect an ecosystem? What happens when an excess of the limiting
nutrient is introduced? (hint: example of fertilizer runoff  Lake Hodges)
16. What is climate? What is weather? What is the difference between the two?
17. Describe the effects the tilt and curvature of the Earth. How doe it contribute to the unequal heating of the Earth’s
surface? What does it cause?
18. What are abiotic and biotic factors? Give some examples of each.
19. What is a habitat? What is a niche?
20. Describe the competitive exclusion principle.
21. Describe symbiosis, mutualism, commensalism, parasitism and predation. Give examples.
22. Describe ecological succession. What are the two types?
23. What are the main characteristics of each biome (Tundra, Boreal Forest, Temperate Grasslands,
Chaparral/Temperate Woodland and Shrubland, Tropical Rainforest, Desert, Temperate Forest)?
24. Describe the different aquatic zones; photic, aphotic, benthic, coral reef, coastal ocean, intertidal. Give examples of
organisms that live in each zone.