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Ecology
Organisms and their environment
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ecology | the study of living organisms in relation to their environment |
| Population | is the number of all the members of the same species in a particular area |
| Community | is all of the populations of living organisms in one area |
| Ecosystem | is all of the living organisms and non-living factors interacting together in a particular part of the environment |
| Habitat | is a part of the environment that can provide food, shelter, and a breeding site for a living organism |
| Biotic | living |
| Non-biotic | non-living |
| Food-chain | flow of energy between different organisms in the eco-system |
| Energy transfer is insufficient | the amount of energy that is passed on in a food-chain is reduced at each step |
| Food-web | all of the interconnected food chains in one part of the eco-system |
| Producers | provide their own food, e.g. converting light energy to chemical energy |
| Consumers | living organisms that obtain their energy from other organisms |
| Primary consumers | herbivores, obtain energy from the producers |
| Secondary consumers | carnivores, obtain energy from eating other animals |
| Decomposers | fungi and many bacteria obtain their energy and raw materials from the wastes and remains of other organisms |
| Top carnivore | the final consumer |
| Trophic level | shows the position of each organism in the food-chain |
| Pyramids of numbers | a diagrammatic representation of the number of different organisms at each trophic level in an ecosystem at any one time |
| Herbivore | an animal that feeds only on plant material |
| Carnivore | an animal that obtains its energy by consuming other animals |
| Omnivore | consumer both plant material and other animals for energy |
| Pyramids of biomass | describes how much energy/biomass is present in a habitat at the time the sample is taken |
| Pyramids of energy | measures the amount of energy flowing through an ecosystem over a period of time |
| Biomass | biological material derived from a living organism |
| Decay | process of decomposition by bacteria and/or fungi |
| Scavengers | animals that break up the remains into manageable pieces |
| Nutrient Cycles | processes in which microbes convert large molecule in animal and plant remains to simpler compounds in the soil and the atmosphere |
| Saprotrophs | organisms which gets its energy from dead organic matter |
| Antiseptics and Disinfectants | kill the organisms that carry out the decay process |
| Combustion | burning of fossil fuels |
| Nitrate | formed by two sets of processes carried out by microorganisms-nitrogen fixation and nitrification |
| Nitrogen fixation | depends on the process made by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, they combine nitrogen and hydrogen to form ammonium ions and then nitrate, only happens if oxygen is present, occurs naturally when the energy from the lightning combines the nitrogen with oxygen. |
| Nitrogen-fixing bacteria | carries out the nitrogen fixation process, they live free in the soil but a very important species (Rhizobium leguminosarum) lives in nodules on the roots of leguminous plants |
| Nodules | swellings on the roots |
| Nitrification | ammonium ions produced by the decomposition of amino acids and proteins are oxidized first to nitrite then to nitrate, carried out by nitrifying bacteria –which live in the soil. Nitrification only happens if oxygen is present. |
| Denitrification | the reverse of nitrification (absence of oxygen), denitrifying bacteria convert nitrate to nitrogen gas |
| Why plants need nitrogen? | synthesis of proteins and other compounds |
| Carrying capacity | the maximum number of a species that the habitat can hold, determined by the availability of nutrients, shelter and breeding sites |
| Biotic potential | the ability to breed |
| LEDN | less economically developed nation |
| MEDN | more economically developed nation |
| Monoculture | growing a single crop |
| Crop rotations | switching to different types of crops every year or so |
| Slash and burn | technique used during deforestation |
| Deforestation | rapid destruction of woodland |
| Eutrophication | bodies of water receiving too many nutrients, mainly due to fertilizers and sewage waste |
| Leaching | fertilizers washed away from the soil by rain into the nearest body of water |
| Biological oxygen demand | the mass of oxygen consumed by microorganisms in a sample of water |
| Pollution | any effect of human activities upon the environment |
| Pollutant | any product of human activities that has a harmful effect on the environment |
| Greenhouse effect | the trapping of infrared radiation close to the Earth’s surface |
| Global warming | raised temperature close to the Earth’s surface |
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