Question | Answer |
Ecosystem | All of the organisms that live in an area and the non-living features of their environment. |
Community | All the populations of all of the species living in an area. |
Population | All of the members of the one species that live in an area at one time. |
Competition | Organisms ________ for food, shelter, territory, and water. |
Growth Limits | When growth of a population is limited by resources individuals of that species compete for. Ex. Food, shelter, territory, water. |
Limiting Factors | Anything that restricts the number of individuals in a population. Ex.(Same as things individuals competed for, plus predators and disease, because this includes growth factors plus death factors.) |
Carrying Capacity | The largest number of individuals of one species that an ecosystem can support over time. (Elevator.) |
Biotic Potential | The highest rate of reproduction under ideal circumstances. |
Habitat | The place in which an organism lives. |
Niche | An organisms role in the environment: how it obtains food and shelter, finds a mate, cares for its young, avoids danger, etc. |
Producers | Use energy from an outside source, usually the Sun, to make energy rich food molecules. |
Consumers | Obtain energy by eating at least parts of other organisms. |
Decomposers | Break down once living matter to get its energy. |
Primary Succession | When new land is created. This can occur when a volcano erupts, when rivers build up land with silt, or when a river changes course and land that was under water dries out. |
Secondary Succession | When existing land is disturbed by some act of nature (fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, etc.) or act of man (fire, cutting down trees, removing a building, leaving a building unoccupied etc.) |
Climax Community. Thought of as the end of succession. | Happens when some land becomes relatively stable in the community's types of species and the numbers of individuals of each species. Happens often 100 years after Secondary Succession, and 1000 years after Primary Succession. |
Pioneer Species | The first species to settle in an area. |
Feeding Relationships | One species eats members of another species for food. |
Predator and Prey | When a creature hunts for a creature who belongs to another species and both creatures can move. |
Other Feeding Relationships | When the food that is being eaten can't move (grass, mushrooms). |
Symbiotic Relationships | "Scorecard relationships" in which both members are alive. |
Mutualism | A relationship in which members of both species benefit. |
Commensalism | A relationship in which the member of one species benefits and the member of the other species is unaffected. |
Parasitism | A relationship in which the member of one species benefits and the member of the other species is harmed. |