Living Things and the Environment Notes

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

The environment that provides the things the organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce is called a habitat. Examples:

An organism interacts with both the living and nonliving things in its habitat. Biotic Factors: Living parts of a habitat, like grass, plants, lions, tigers, and bears. Abiotic Factors: Nonliving parts of a habitat, like the sunlight, water, soil, oxygen, and temperature.

Circle BIOTIC in GREEN. Circle ABIOTIC in ORANGE.

Levels of Organization Biome Ecosystem Community Population Individual Organism

Individual/Organism: One single LIVING thing (One flower, one meer cat, one opossum) 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.

Population: All the members of one species in a particular area (Lady Bugs on a leaf, daises in a field, students in science class)

Community: All ecosystems have different populations that interact together. All the different populations that live together in an area. (Bees, Daises, and Lady Bugs)

Ecosystem: the community of organisms that live in a particular area, along with their nonliving surroundings (Prairie, Pond, Dead Log)

Biome: Group of ecosystems with similar climates and communities (tundra, desert, grassland, rainforest, etc.)

What is ECOLOGY? Ecology is the study of how living things interact with each other and with their environment.

Click above to play a BRAINPOP on ECOSYSTEMS.