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Biology Definitions
Term | Definition |
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Ecology | is the study of the interactions among living things and their surroundings |
Community | is a group of different species that live together in one area, such as turtles, birds, fish and plants |
Ecosystem | includes all the organisms as well as the climate, soil, water, rocks and other nonliving things in a given area |
Biome | is a major regional or global community of organisms |
Producer | is an organism that gets their energy from nonliving resources, meaning they make their own food |
Autotroph | producers are also called autotrophs; prefix -auto mean self ; suffix -troph means nourishment |
Consumer | is an organism that get their energy by eating other living or once-living resources. |
Heterotroph | consumers are also called heterotrophs; prefix -hetero means different |
Chemosynthesis | is the process by which an organism forms carbohydrates using chemicals rather than light, as an energy source |
Food Chain | is a sequence that links species by their feeding relationships |
Herbivore | are organisms that eat only plants, such as desert cottontails |
Carnivore | are organisms that only eat animals, such as Harris's Hawks eat desert cottontails |
Omnivore | are organisms that eat both plants and animals, such as Kangaroo rats eat both seeds and insects |
Detritivore | are organisms that eat dead organic matter or detritus, such as a millipede that feeds on particles of detritus |
Decomposer | are detritivores that break down organic matter into simpler compounds, such as microorganisms and fungi |
Generlists | are consumers that have a varying diet |
Trophic Levels | are levels of nourishment in a food chain |
Food Web | is a model that shows the complex network of feeding relationships and the flow of energy within and sometimes beyond an ecosystem |