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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 |