Organisms and their environment

How does the environment affect the organisms living in it?

• The conditions in an environment determine which organisms can survive in it
• The icy conditions of the Arctic and the humid heat of the rainforest each present challeneges for living organisms
• They must be adapted to their environment and be able to respond to any changes

• Ecologists study the biodiversity of life found in an ecosystem or habitat, where a particular organism is found (its distribution), as well as how many individuals there are in a group of the same species (the population size).
• These data are used to monitor changes in population size or distribution or to test hypotheses about what sort of organisms exist in a certain place

• Sampling means looking at a small portion of an area of population
• In random sampling every point within an area has an equal chance of being selected
• This means the sample is likely to be representative of the whole area

Sampling techniques

• A pooter is…