Range of Tolerance

Foss Environments Module

Environmental Factors  A relationship exists between a number of

environmental factors and how well organisms grow.  Environments factors (living or nonliving) can either

help an organism grow or prevent it from growing.  Some factors could be temperature, amount of rain, or

the quality of the air or water.

Preferred Environmental Conditions  Each organism has a set of preferred environmental

conditions.

 The isopods we observed preferred to be in a dark and

wet environment.  That’s why the isopods tried to get under the black

construction paper roof on our terrarium.

Range of Tolerance  Organisms have ranges of tolerance for environmental

factors.  The range will be the high and low extremes of tolerance for an environmental factor.  Organisms have specific requirements for successful growth, development and reproduction.  Example: There may be a coldest temperature and hottest temperature an animal can survive in their environment. That is their range of tolerance.

Optimum Conditions  Conditions that are most favorable for an organism to

survive, grow and reproduce.  This optimum is somewhere WITHIN the RANGE OF TOLERANCE for that organism.  If an animal has a range of tolerance for temperature of 0-85 degree F somewhere within that temperature range will be the temperature that the animal grows BEST.