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Ecosystems and Populations
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Ecosystem | A community of organisms and their abiotic environment |
Biotic | Describes living factors in the environment |
Abiotic | Describes the non-living part of the environment, including water, rocks, light, and temperature |
Organism | A living thing; anything that can carry out life processes independently |
Species | A group of organisms that are closely related and can mate to produce fertile offspring; also the level of classification below genus and above subspecies |
Population | A group of organisms of the same species that live in a specific geographical area and interbreed |
Community | A group of various species that live in the same habitat and interact with each other |
Habitat | The place where an organism usually lives |
Niche | The unique position occupied by a species, both in terms of its physical use of its habitat and its function within an ecological community |
Natural Selection | The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully than less well adapted individuals do; a theory to explain the mechanism of evolution |
Evolution | A heritable change in the characteristics within a population from one generation to the next; the development of new types of organisms from preexisting types of organisms over time |
Adaptation | The process of becoming adapted to an environment; an anatomical, physiological, or behavioral change that improves a population's ability to survive |
Artificial Selection (Selective Breeding) | The selective breeding of organisms (by humans) for specific desirable characteristics |
Resistance | In physical science, the opposition presented to the current by a material or device |