4.

1 The Sonoran Desert

1. Define the following terms.
a) Adaptation – Features of an organism that help them to
survive and reproduce in its habitat.
b) Ecosystem – A network of interactions between all the living
organisms and non-living things around them.
c) Food web – Interconnecting food chains, indicating how
energy is transferred between organisms in an ecosystem.
d) Habitat – A place where an organism lives.
e) Ecology – The study of the interactions of living organisms
with one another and with their physical environment.
2. Show the food web in the Sonoran Desert (Tb.Pg.130).
Name two producers.
Ans. Prickly pear cactus and brittlebrush
3. Explain why the food web could not exist without the
producers.
Ans. The producers use energy from the Sun to make food by
photosynthesis; this makes energy available for all other
organisms in the food web.
4. What do the arrows in the food web represent?
Ans. The arrows represent energy, in the form of chemical
energy in food, passing from one organism to another.
5. Give two examples of interactions between organisms in the
desert other than feeding.
Ans. Gila woodpeckers use saguaro cacti to make nests; fruit
bats pollinate saguaro cacti.

6. How the cacti are adapted to live in a desert?

Ans. – In cactus plants leaves are reduced to spines.
- Instead of leaves, they use their green, thick stems for
photosynthesis. This reduces the surface area of
leaf that is exposed to the air, which reduces the loss of water
vapour from the leaves.
-The spines also protect the plant from grazing animals.
-The stems store water.
-The root systems of cacti, which sometimes spread very widely
just below the surface to catch rainwater almost as soon as it
falls.
-Roots may also go very deeply into the ground to reach
groundwater.