Resource Availability in Ecosystems Flashcards

Vocabulary practice cards focusing on how biotic and abiotic resource availability influences growth, competition, and population dynamics in ecosystems.

Resources

Living and nonliving materials that all organisms must get from their environment to live and grow, including food, water, and shelter.

Individual Growth

The development of a single organism from a young stage, such as an acorn into a tree, which requires sufficient resources to survive, grow, and eventually reproduce.

Population Growth

An increase in the number of organisms in a population, which typically occurs when there is an abundance of resources.

Competition

An interaction that occurs when different populations or individuals share and struggle for the same limited resources, such as water, nest materials, or food.

Abundant Resources

Large amounts of food, water, shelter, or space that support population growth and high reproduction rates.

Scarce Resources

Limited availability of resources that leads to competition, starvation, higher mortality, and population decline.

Biotic Factors

Parts of an ecosystem that are living or related to the activity of living things, including bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, and decaying organisms.

Abiotic Factors

The nonliving parts of an ecosystem that individuals depend on for survival, such as air, water, nutrients, soil, sunlight, and rainfall.

Exponential Growth

A phenomenon where a population size increases by a factor repeatedly, occurring when resources are abundant.

Algal Bloom

Extreme growth of algal populations caused by an abundance of nutrient resources, often triggered by rainwater runoff carrying garden and agricultural fertilizers.

Periodical Cicadas

Species of insects with $13$- or $17$-year life cycles that, when they emerge, provide an incredible abundance of food resources for their predators.

Environmental Factors

Conditions like a rainy season that increases seed production or a drought that dries up a river, affecting the availability of resources for populations.

Wildfire

A natural or human-caused factor that can kill organisms and destroy shelter, temporarily limiting resource availability and causing population decreases.