Download Ch. 8 Notes

CHAPTER 8
Populations and
Communities
 The series of changes that occurs
after a disturbance in an existing
ecosystem is called
 secondary succession
 The largest population that an
environment can support is called
its
 carrying capacity
 An organism’s habitat must
provide all of the following
 food, water, & shelter
 An organism’s particular role in its
habitat is called its
 niche
 The nonliving parts of an
ecosystem are called
 abiotic factors
 The place where an organism lives
and that provides the things the
organism needs is a
 habitat
 A hawk building a nest on a cactus
is an example of
 commensalism
 If there are 40 ladybugs living in a
garden measuring 5 square
meters, the population of the
ladybugs is
 8 ladybugs per square meter
 When a flea is living on a cat, the
cat is the
Host
 The smallest unit of ecological
organization is a single
organism or species
 The behaviors and physical
characteristics of species that
allow them to live successfully in
their environment are called
 adaptations
 Population density is defined as
the number of individuals of a
population in a specific area
 Mutualism, commensalism, and
parasitism are three types of
symbiotic relationships
 All the different populations that
live together in an area make up a
community
 If an early winter caused crops to
die this would be an example of a
limiting factor
 A population is all the members of
one species living in a particular
area
 The study of how things interact
with each other and with their
environment is called
ecology
 The first species to populate an
area where primary succession is
taking place are called
pioneer species
 The struggle between organisms
to survive in a habitat with limited
resources is called
competition
 An example of a biotic factor in a
prairie ecosystem would be
grass or prairie dogs
 When a group of buffalo leave
their herd for better land to graze
this is
emigration
 Examples of limiting factors are
weather, space, & food
 To produce their own food, plants
must use
sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide