bio eco 3

What is a habitat?

The specific place or environment where an organism lives and finds everything it needs such as food, water, shelter, and space.

What does the term niche mean?

The role of a species in its ecosystem—how it survives, what it eats, how it gets resources, and how it interacts with other organisms and the environment.

What resources do organisms compete for?

They compete for food, water, light, nutrients, living space, and territory, all of which are limited in nature.

What is an ecological community?

All the different populations of species living and interacting in the same area, including relationships like predator–prey, competition, and cooperation.

Why do species adapt to their niche?

They develop physical or behavioral traits that help them survive in specific conditions and reduce direct competition with other species. This process is called resource partitioning.

What is resource partitioning?

When different species share a habitat but divide resources—such as feeding at different times or using different parts of a tree—so they can coexist without driving each other out.

What is the competitive exclusion principle?

Two species cannot live forever in exactly the same niche. If their needs completely overlap, one will eventually outcompete and replace the other.

What is competition in ecology?

An interaction where individuals or species try to get the same limited resources. The species that gathers resources more efficiently survives and reproduces more successfully.

What is a fundamental niche?

The full range of environmental conditions and resources a species could use if there were no competitors, predators, or other limiting factors.

What is a realized niche?

The part of the fundamental niche that a species actually occupies in nature, limited by competition, predation, and other interactions.

What traits give a species a competitive advantage?

Traits such as high reproduction rates, larger size or aggression, more efficient foraging, or living in a place with few or no predators—common reasons why invasive species spread quickly.