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chapter 20 vocab
chapter 20: community ecology
Term | Definition |
---|---|
climax community | a community that after a process of ecological seccession has reached a generally stable state |
commensalism | a relationship between two organisms in which one organism benefits and the other one is unaffected |
disturbance | in ecology an event that changes a community be removing or destroying organisms or altering resource availability |
ecological succession | a gradual process of change and replacement in a community |
interspecific competition | a relationship between two species in which both species compete for limited resources such that both species are negatively affected by the relationship |
mutualism | a relationship between two species in which both species benefit |
predation | a relationship between two species in which one species the predator feeds on the other species the prey |
parasitism | a relationship between two species in which on species the parasite benefits from the other species the host which is harmed |
primary succession | succession that begins in an area that previously did not support life |
pioneer species | a species that colonizes an inhabited area that starts an ecological cycle in which many other species become established |
symbiosis | a relationship in which two different organisms live in close association with each other |
species richness | the number of different species in an area or community |
species evenness | an measure of the relative abundance of species in an ecological community |
species area effect | a pattern in which the number of species in an area increases as the area increases |
stability | the tendency of a community to maintain a relatively constant structure |
secondary succession | the process by which one community replaces another community that has been partially or totally destroyed |