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Unit 1 - Ecology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Biosphere | Consists of all life on earth and all parts of the earth where life exists |
| Ecology | Scientific studies of interaction among and between organisms and their physical environment |
| Population | Group of individuals of the same species and live in the same area |
| Community | Different populations that live together in a certain area |
| Ecosystem | All organisms that live in a place together with their physical environment |
| Biome | Group of ecosystems that share similar climates and typical organisms |
| Biotic Factor | Living part of the environment which an organism might interact Examples: animals, mushrooms, plants, and bacteria |
| Abiotic Factor | Nonliving part of the environment Example: sunlight, heat, wind, water currents, soil type, and precipitation |
| Autotroph | Organisms that capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and convert it into forms that living cells can use; also called a primary producer |
| Primary Producer | Organisms that store energy in forms that make it available to other organisms that eat them |
| Heterotroph | Organisms that must get energy from other organisms by ingesting them; also called consumers |
| Consumer | Organisms classified by the way they require energy |
| Niche | The environment where an organism lives and how it interacts with biotic and abiotic factors |
| Habitat | Place where an organism lives |
| Resource | Necessities of life such as food, water, and shelter |
| Predation | One animal capturing and feeding on another animal |
| Herbivory | One animal that feeds on plants and other producers |
| Symbosis | Two species that live together |
| Mutualism | Relationship of species in which both benefit |
| Parasitism | Relationship of species where one organism lives in or out of another and harms it |
| Commensalism | Relationship of species where one organism benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed |
| Population Density | Number of individuals per unit area |
| Distribution | How individuals in a population are spaced out across the range of the population |
| Age Structure | Number of males and females of each age a population contains |
| Immigration | Population that grows when individuals move their range elsewhere |
| Emigration | Population that decreases when individuals move out of their range |
| Exponential Growth | The larger a population gets, the faster it grows |
| Logistic Growth | Population's growth slows then stops after a period of exponential growth |
| Carrying Capacity | Maximum number of species a place can support |
| Limiting Factor | A factor that controls the growth of a population |
| Destiny Dependent Limiting Factor | Operates on population density reaching a certain level |
| Density Independent Limiting Factor | Affects all populations in similar ways no matter how big the population |
| Competition | Animals compete for resources to breed and create offspring; density dependent limiting factor |
| Biodiversity | Total of all the genetically based variation in all organisms in the biosphere |
| Habitat Fragmentation | Development splitting ecosystems into pieces |
| Ecological Succession | A series of more-or-less predictable changes that occur in a community over time |
| Primary Succession | Succession that begin in an area with no remnants of an older community |
| Pioneer Species | The first species to colonize barren areas |
| Secondary Succession | Disturbance that changes a community without removing soil; proceeds faster than primary succession |
| Agriculture | Enables farmers to double world food production |
| Monoculture | Clearing large areas of land to plant a single highly productive crop year after year |
| Renewable Resource | Resources that can be produced or replaced by a healthy ecosystem Example: wind |
| Nonrenewable Resource | Resources that cannot be replenished by natural processes within a reasonable amount of time Example: coal, oil, natural gas |
| Sustainable Resource | Using resources in a way that does not cause long term environmental harm |
| Deforestation | Loss of forests |
| Dessertification | Turning farmland into desert with a combination of farming, overgrazing, seasonal drought, and climate change |
| Biological Magnification | Occurs if a pollutant such as DDT, mercury, or PCB is picked up by an organism and is not broken down or eliminated from its body |
| Acid Rain | Formed by burning fossil fuels releasing nitrogen and sulfur compounds which combine with water vapor in the air to create nitric and sulfuric acids |
| Greenhouse Gases | Burning fossil fuels and forests releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere |
| Ecological Footprint | Describes the total area of functioning land and water ecosystems needed to provide the resources an individual or population uses |
| Ecological Disturbance | Natural disaster such as a flood or tornado |
Created by:
cdaoud12
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