Biology  by Bradford
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B4.2 Ecological niches: grass skirts

20 quick questions on ecological niches, each answered in a word or two. Print a sheet for each team, a key for the checker and a tick sheet, then tape the sheets to the board and race.

How it runs

  1. SnipA runner cuts one strip off the bottom of their team’s sheet.
  2. Answer as a pairBack at the table, they write the answer on the strip. No books.
  3. Get it checkedThe checker reads it against the key: you, or a student holding it.
  4. Back for the nextA tick earns the next strip. Wrong? Back to the table to try again.

The questions on this sheet

The checker’s key, with every answer, prints with the sheets.
  1. Role of a species in its ecosystem
  2. How plants, algae and cyanobacteria feed
  3. Blending into the background
  4. Cannot survive where oxygen is present
  5. Respires with or without oxygen
  6. Dies without a supply of oxygen
  7. Ingest, digest, absorb, then assimilate
  8. Protist both autotrophic and heterotrophic
  9. Secretes enzymes onto dead matter
  10. Type, number and arrangement of teeth
  11. Toxic plant chemical deterring herbivores
  12. Bright pattern advertising a toxin
  13. Woody climber rooted in the forest floor
  14. Plant living its whole life on a branch
  15. Starts high, sends roots down, kills host
  16. Full potential role, without competitors
  17. Reduced role a species has amid rivals
  18. Two species cannot share a niche forever
  19. Makes ATP by oxidising H₂S or Fe²⁺
  20. Skull ridge anchoring big jaw muscles

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