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. What is Ecology?
Ecology is the field of Biology that studies the relationship between living beings and between living beings and the environment.
2. What is a species?
A species is a set of living beings able to cross among themselves generating fertile offspring.
This concept however does not apply to individuals of exclusive asexual reproduction and so other definitions have been proposed. For example, “a species is a set of living beings that evolve in a common manner all of them considered ancestors of the same type in relation to common descendants”.
3. What is a population?
A population is a set of individuals of the same species found in a given place in a given time.
4. What is a community? What is the difference between the concepts of community and population?
A community is a set of populations of living beings that live in the same region and interact with each other.
In Ecology a population is a set whose members (living in a given place in a given time) are part of the same species. A community is a set of populations of different species (living in a given place in a given time).
5. What is the difference between an ecological niche and a habitat?
An ecological niche is a set of peculiar activities, resources and strategies that a species explores to survive and reproduce.
An habitat is the place where the species lives to explore its ecological niche.
In other words it can be said that the habitat is the “address” of the species and the ecological niche is the “profession” of the species.
6. What are biotic factors?
Biotic factors are living beings (plants, animals and microorganisms) that are part of a given environment.
Image Diversity: biotic factors
7. What are abiotic factors?
Abiotic factors are the nonliving elements that constitute a given environment, like light, temperature, minerals, water, gases, atmospheric pressure, etc.
Image Diversity: abiotic factors
8. What is an ecosystem?
An ecosystem is a system composed of biotic and abiotic factors in interaction.
Image Diversity: ecosystem
9. What is a biosphere?
A biosphere is a set of all of the ecosystems of the planet.
10. What are autotrophic beings? What are heterotrophic beings?
Autotrophic beings are those that can produce their own food, i.e., that make organic material from inorganic compounds. Heterotrophic beings are those that need to incorporate organic material to nourish themselves. Therefore heterotrophs depend on the production of the autotrophs.
11. What are the processes that autotrophic beings use to produce organic material from inorganic substances?
Autotrophic beings make organic material by photosynthesis or by chemosynthesis. There are photosynthetic autotrophs, like plants, and chemosynthetic autotrophs, like some bacteria.
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