Abiotic factors, tolerance and biomes
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Question
What is an abiotic factor?
Answer
A **non-living** physical or chemical feature of the environment (e.g. temperature, light, water, pH, oxygen, salinity).
Question
What is a biotic factor?
Answer
A **living** feature of the environment — the effect of other organisms (predators, competitors, parasites, food).
Question
How do you decide if a factor is abiotic or biotic?
Answer
Ask **is it alive?** Non-living physical/chemical = abiotic; the effect of another organism = biotic.
Question
Give three examples of abiotic factors.
Answer
**Temperature, light intensity and water availability** (also pH, oxygen, salinity, soil minerals).
Question
Give three examples of biotic factors.
Answer
**Predators, competitors and parasites** (also disease and food supply).
Question
What is an organism's range of tolerance?
Answer
The range of an abiotic factor over which it can **survive** — best in the optimum, absent beyond its limits.
Question
On a tolerance curve, what is the optimum range?
Answer
The middle peak, where the organism's **performance / abundance is highest**.
Question
On a tolerance curve, what happens beyond the limits of tolerance?
Answer
The organism cannot survive and is **absent**.
Question
What is a limiting factor?
Answer
The abiotic factor **furthest from the optimum** — the one that restricts where an organism can live.
Question
What is a biome?
Answer
A **large region with a characteristic climate** (abiotic conditions) and a characteristic community of organisms.
Question
Which two abiotic conditions mainly define a biome?
Answer
**Temperature** and **rainfall** (water availability).
Question
Name two abiotic factors that characterise a hot desert.
Answer
**Very high temperature** and **very low rainfall** (scarce water).
Question
Why might a species grow faster in a mesocosm than in the wild?
Answer
Conditions are kept **near its optimum**, so the **limiting factor is removed**.
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Topic 2.10 hub
Ecological niches
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