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Ecology Vocabulary
Term | Definition |
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Abiotic | An environmental factor that is not associated with the activities of living organisms |
Biotic | An environmental factor that is associated with or result from the activity of living organisms |
Carbon cycle | The movement of carbon from the non living things and back |
Commensalism | A relationship between two organisms in which one organism benefits and the other is unaffected |
Competition | Ecological relationship in which two or more organisms depend on the same limited resource |
Consumer | An organism that eats other organisms or organic matter |
Decomposer | An organism that gets energy by breaking down the remains of dead organisms or animal wastes and consuming absorbing the nutrients |
Ecology | The study of the interactions of living organisms with one another and with their environment |
Ecosystem | A community of organisms and their abiotic, or nonliving, environment |
Energy pyramid | A triangular diagram that shows an ecosystem’s loss of energy, which results as energy passes through the ecosystem's food chain; each row in the pyramid represents a trophic feeding level in an ecosystem, and the area of a row represents the energy store |
Food chain | The pathway of energy transfer through various stages as a result of the feeding patterns of a series of organisms. |
Food web | A diagram that shows the feeding relationship between organisms in an ecosystem |
Limiting factor | An environmental factor that prevents an organisms or population from reaching its full potential of size or activity |
Mutualism | A relationship between two species in which both species benefits |
Parasitism | A relationship between two species in which one species, the parasite, benefits from the other species, the host, which is harmed. |
Predator | An organism that kills and eats all or parts of another organism |
Prey | An organism that is killed and eaten by another organism |
Producer | An organism that can make its own food by using energy from its surrounding |
Symbiosis | A relationship in which two different organisms live in close association with each other |