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Ecology Alice Hansen
Study of the environment
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Ecology | study of interactions among organisms and between organisms in their environment |
| Niche | an organisms ecological role |
| Habitat | the area where an organism lives, including the biotic and abiotic factors that affect it |
| Producer/autotroph | organism that capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and uses it to produce food from inorganic compounds |
| Consumer/heterotroph | organisms that obtain energy form the food it consumes |
| Herbivore/primary consumer | organisms that obtain energy form eating producers |
| Carnivore/secondary consumer | organisms that obtain energy form eating consumers |
| Omnivore | organisms that obtain energy by eating both plants and animals |
| Decomposer | organisms that break down and obtain energy from dead organic material |
| Detritivore | organisms that feed on plant and animal remains and other dead matter |
| Biotic | biological influences |
| Abiotic | physical or non-living factors that shape the ecosystem |
| Organism | living factors in the ecosystem |
| Population | group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area |
| Community | groups of species living together in a specific area |
| Ecosystem | organisms that live in a particular area and their interaction with their non-living (abiotic) parts of the envirnoment |
| Biosphere | part of Earth in whcih life exists including, land, water, and air or atmosphere |
| Photosynthesis | process by which plants and some other producers use light energy to make glucose and oxygen |
| Respiration | the release of energy |
| Chemosynthesis | proces by which some organisms, such as certain bacteria, use chemical energy to produce carbohydrates |
| Biomass/energy pyramid/ecological pyramid | total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level |
| Trophic level | feeding level in a food chain or food web |
| Food chain | series of steps in an ecosystem in which organism transfer energy by eating of being eaten |
| Food web | network of complex interactions formed by the feeding relationships among the various organims in an ecosystem |
| Bioaccumulation/biomagnification | increasing concentration of a harmful substance in organisms at higher trophic level in a food chain or food web |
| polluntant | harmful material that can enter the biosphere through land, air, or water |
| population density | the number of individauls per unit area |
| predation | interaction in which one organism captures and feeds on another organism |
| predator-prey relationship | mechanism of population control in which a population is regulated by predation |
| symbiosis | relationship in which two species live closely together |
| transpiration | loss of water from a plant through its leaves |
| sustainable development | using natural resources at a rate that does not deplete them |
| tropism | response of a plant to an environmental stimulus |
| taxis | response of an animal to an environmental stimulus |
| detritus | particles of organic material that provide food for orgamisms at the bse of an estuary's food web |
| denitrification | conversion of nitrates into nitrogen gas (N2) |
| demography | scientific study of human population |
| demographic transiition | change in a population from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates |
| deforestation | destruction of forest |
| density-dependent limiting factor | limiting factor that depends on population size |
| density-independent limiting factor | limiting factor that affects all populations in similar ways, regardless of population size |
| competition aka competitive exclusion principal | ecological rule that states no two species can occupy the same exact niche in the same habitat at the same time. |
| non-native species/exotic species | a species living outside its native distributional range, which has arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. |
Created by:
alice.hansen
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