3 Communities, Biomes, and Ecosystems

ENCOUNTER THE PHENOMENON

Write the Encounter the Phenomenon question for this module.

Use the “What I Know” column to list the things you know about the Encounter the Phenomenon
question. Then list the questions you have about the Encounter the Phenomenon question in the
“What I Want to Find Out” column. As you read the module, fill in the “What I Learned” column.

K W L
What I Know What I Want to Find Out What I Learned
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Communities, Biomes, and Ecosystems
1 Community Ecology
REVIEW Recall the definition of the Review Vocabulary term.
VOCABULARY
abiotic factor is the nonliving organism that is part of an envitoment
abiotic factor

NEW VOCABULARY Use the new vocabulary terms to complete the following sentences
climax community Your community includes the people, other animals, plants,
bacteria, and fungi in your area. Changing abiotic or biotic factors can
community
trigger ecological succession  —the replacement of one
ecological succession community with another. primary succession occurs when
primary succession a community becomes established in an area of exposed rock without
topsoil. Eventually, a stable, mature climax community can
secondary succession develop from bare rock. If a disturbance, such as fire, removes the
community but not the soil, an orderly and predictable change called
secondary succesion restores the community over time.

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 1 Community Ecology (continued)
Predict how an unusually prolonged drought might affect a
biological community.

The drought that is not part of the ecosystem might cause the species to

decrease or became exitinct, just like other organisms that feed on these

species and will instead be replaced by species that adapt to this drought.

Get It? Describe how the community where you live may have
changed over time because of succession.
When I was living in the USA I experienced a forest fire and the
environment that before was green became a black with a grey covered
and as the months go by, you can see how nature is rebuilding itself but
you kept seeing black parts that were brown before, apart from the fact that
houses disappeared and have to move at another place. !

Contrast primary succession and secondary succession. Give an

example of each.

the primary succession is the development of founding a community in an

area of rock without topsoil such as a solidified lava flow. Secondary

succession is when, after having eliminated a community of organisms, the

soil remains like a forest fire.

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Sequence the following steps in the primary succession of a forest by

writing each step in the flowchart.
• perennial herbs and grasses • bare rock
• lichens • shrubs and shade-intolerant trees
• shade-tolerant trees • small annual plants

Bared rock perennial herbs and grasses

Linchens shrubs and shades-intolerant

t

small annual plants shade- tolerant trees

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1 Community Ecology (continued)
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Predict how unfavorable abiotic and biotic factors affect a species.
Well, biotic can be predators or they can make them sick (bacteria) and the lack of abiotic makes that life

does not exist so if any of these are missing, the species does not survive.

2. Classify the stage of succession of a field that is becoming overgrown with shrubs
after a few years of disuse.
As the soil has memory then it will reestablish this ecosystem. Then as time passes, grass will grow, then

seeds will arrive by wind, birds will grow bushes and flowers and then return to being a habitat.

3. Contrast primary and secondary succession.

The first succession is from a newly formed rock colonized by living beings for the first time, whereas the

second succession is when an area is altered and re-colonized after the disturbance.

4. Describe how the stages of succession can change a rocky field into a mature
forest.

first the moss arrives by the wind, the rain and is deposited in this barren land, and make its process of
living reproduce and die with the lynches and the crumbling rocks this dead organic produces a tin cape
of soil and this process continue until you get a greater layer of soil and this also stimulates the growth of
moss and lichen. Later the seeds are arriving by means of birds, wind; Vegetation begins to grow and as
it becomes a habitat the animals arrive to hide or look for food and thats’s how a barren land became into
a mature forest.

5. List at least five organisms that are present in your biological community. Then write

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a paragraph that provides evidence of how an abiotic factor supports each
organism.

My list is: my dog, birds, a sunflower, Alejandra, an orchid, a ladybug, even a mosquito or mosaic, all
and not only the ones I chose, all of us need water to survive, the sun to give us energy or food, air that
it is the oxygen that without it we would not exist the ozone layer that protects us from burning to live.

6. Predict what might happen to your backyard if it was left unattended for several
years. Use information from this lesson to explain your prediction.

What I think would happen is that a new habitat would be formed in itself that would pass the second

successive, no longer having the beautiful flowers that I had to take care of but now they would be

replaced by bushes, malesa, moss and animals that take refuge there.

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