1. Is spraying for mosquitoes harmful or helpful to the environment? Why?

2. Explain the development of Ecology. Do ecologist use descriptive or quantitative research?

3. How are the animals shown on page 56 (swallower fish and the mountain goats) adapted to their environment? What abiotic factors affect each type of animal?

4. How might a drought in the grassland, shown on page 57 affect living things there? What organisms might adapt to life in dry grasslands?

5. What might ecologists study about organisms? Population? Community? Ecosystem? The Biosphere? (Use the illustration found on page 59 to help you understand the levels of organization of life.)

6. Define the roles of autotrophs and heterotrophs. Which organism in the picture of the lion and the vultures are autotrophs? Heterotrophs?

7. Explain the types of symbiosis. Describe the symbiotic relationship shown in each picture found on page 69

8. Define trophic level. How does this wetland community illustrate a food chain? How many tropic levels are shown?

9. How is a food web different from a food chain? Which model do you think is more realistic? Why?

10. What information does each ecological pyramid shown? (Use the two different diagrams found on page 73)

11.How does the water cycle through the ecosystem? How do organism lose water? (Diagram on page 75

12. How do organisms obtain carbon? How does carbon cycle through the ecosystem?

13. What roles do producers, consumers, and decomposers have in the nitrogen cycle?