Investigating Ecosystems

Explain how various abiotic and biotic factors—such as specific environmental conditions, toxic chemicals, resource availability, and the presence of predators or pathogens—directly affect the health and size of ecological communities.
Describe the correct methodologies for conducting robust field investigations to determine the distribution and abundance of organisms, explaining how to accurately estimate overall population sizes within a defined geographical area.
Calculate accurate arithmetic means from extensive data sets related to specific populations within an ecosystem.
Understand the statistical concept of percentiles and apply them appropriately to analyze complex ecological data sets.
Plot and draw highly accurate graphs representing ecological population data, carefully selecting the most appropriate scales for all graph axes.
Extract and critically interpret complex population and distribution data from ecological charts, graphs, and summary tables.

What you need to know