Ecosystems

• Habitat- An environment that provides the things the organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce.

• An organism obtains food, water, shelter, and other things it needs to live, grow, and reproduce from its environment.

• Organisms live in different habitats because they have different requirements for survival.

• Write a few sentences describing the habitat of your favorite wild animal.

• Biotic Factors-The living parts of a habitat.• List five to seven biotic factors in a whitetail

deer’s habitat.

Abiotic Factors

• Abiotic factors are the nonliving parts of an organism’s habitat.

• Includes water, sunlight, oxygen, temperature, and soil.

Levels of Organization

• Populations- All members of one species in a particular area are referred to as a population.

• A species is a group of organisms that are physically similar and can mate with each other and produce offspring that can also mate and reproduce.

Levels of Organization

• Community-All the different populations that live together in an area.

• List as many species within a forest ecosystem to define a community.

• To be considered a community, the different populations must live close enough together to interact.

Ecosystem

• Ecosystem-The community of organisms that live in a particular area, along with their nonliving surroundings, make up an ecosystem.

• The order of organization within an ecosystem from smallest to largest: Organism, which belongs to a population that includes other members of its species, population belongs to a community of different species, and the community and abiotic factors together form an ecosystem.