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Ecology Vocabulary
Ecology and structures. Information on ecosystems
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Autotroph | an organism that is able to make things (food) to survive |
| Heterotroph | an organism that relies on eating autotroph things (must eat other things to survive, it can't make it's own food.) |
| Organism | an individual animal, plant, or other living thing (or a single-cell organism) life form |
| Habitat | the natural home, or environment of an animal, plant, or other living organism |
| Biotic Factor | also known as the living (or used to be living) organisms |
| Abiotic Factor | also known as the non-living (has never lived or is never alive) organisms |
| Species | the classification comparing related organisms that share common characteristics and are capable of interbreeding |
| Population | a community of animals, plants, or humans among whose members interbreeding occurs. |
| Community | a group of interdependent organisms of different species growing or living together in a specified habitat. |
| Ecosystem | a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. |
| Ecology | the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings (or the study) |
| Immigration (in Ecology use) | an animal establishes a home in a habitat because it has resources it can utilize or because the habitat is ideal for them |
| Emigration (in Ecology use) | an animal leaves its home because the habitat is no longer ideal for them and they need to find a more suitable environment |
| Population Density | the concentration of individuals within a species in a specific geographic locale |
| Limiting factor | anything that constrains a population's size and slows or stops it from growing |
| Carrying Capacity | the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation |
| Natural Selection (in Ecology use) | the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change |
| Adaptation (both in Ecology and Biology use) | a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment. |
| Niche (in Ecology use) | a position or role taken by a particular kind of organism within its community |
| Competition (in Ecology use) | interaction between organisms, populations, or species, in which birth, growth and death depend on gaining a share of a limited environmental resource. |
| Preditation | a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation and parasitoidism |
| Mutualism | a type of symbiotic relationship where all species involved benefit from their interactions |
| Commensalism | an association between two organisms in which one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm. |
| Parasitism | relationship between two species of plants or animals in which one benefits at the expense of the other, sometimes without killing the host organism |
| Parasite | an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense |
| Host | an organism that harbours a parasite and supplies it with nutrients, the organism wanted by the parasite |
| Succession | the process by which a plant or animal community successively gives way to another until a stable climax is reached |
| Primary Succession | happens when a new patch of land is created or exposed for the first time |
| Pioneer Species | hardy species which are the first to colonize barren environments or previously biodiverse steady-state ecosystems that have been disrupted, such as by fire |
| Secondary Succession | occurs in an area that had previously been inhabited but experienced a disturbance, such as a wildfire |
| Producer | an organism that makes its own food |
| Consumer | an organism that depends on producers to consume or eat |
| Herbivore | an organism that eats plants only |
| Carnivore | an organism that depends on herbivores for their meal or food |
| Omnivore | an organism that eats both meat and plants, not herbivore, nor carnivore |
| Scavenger | an organism that mostly consumes decaying biomass, such as meat or rotting plant material |
| Decomposer | an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material. |
| Food Chain | describes how energy and nutrients move through an ecosystem |
| Food Web | a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains. |
| Energy Pyramid | a model that shows the flow of energy from one trophic, or feeding, level to the next in an ecosystem |
| Nitrogen Fixation | the chemical processes by which atmospheric nitrogen is assimilated into organic compounds, especially by certain microorganisms as part of the nitrogen cycle. |
| Biome | a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat, e.g. forest or tundra. |
| Climate | long-term, typical atmospheric conditions in an area, such as temperature and rainfall |
| Desert | any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation |
| Rainforest | very high annual rainfall, high average temperatures, nutrient-poor soil, and high levels of biodiversity (species richness) |
| Emergent Layer | The top layer of a rainforest |
| Canopy | the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant cropping or crop, formed by the collection of individual plant crowns |
| Understory | a layer of vegetation beneath the main canopy of a forest. |
| Grassland | a large open area of a country covered with grass, especially one used for grazing. "rough grassland" |
| Savanna | a grassy plain in tropical and subtropical regions, with few trees. |
| Deciduous Tree | "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn |
| Boreal Forest | generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches |
| Coniferous Tree | small, waxy and usually narrow leaves (needles or flat scales) |
| Tundra | the coldest of all the biomes |
| Permafrost | a permanently frozen layer below Earth's surface |
| Estuary | a partially enclosed, coastal water body where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with salt water from the ocean |
| Intertidal Zone | the area where the ocean meets the land between high and low tides |
| Neritic Zone | shallow marine environment extending from mean low water down to 200-metre (660-foot) depths, generally corresponding to the continental shelf |
| Biogeography | the branch of biology that deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals |
| Continental Drift | the concept that the world's continents once were a single mass and have since drifted to their present positions |
| Dispersal | the action or process of distributing things or people over a wide area |
| Exotic Species | a plant species or an animal species that is non-native |
| Point Source | a single identifiable localised source of something |
| Nonpoint Source | a source of pollution that are issues, from widely distributed or pervasive environmental elements |
| Biodegradable | (of a substance or object) capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms |
| Natural Resource | any material, substance, or organism found in nature that is useful to people |
| Soil Conservation | the protection of soil from erosion and other types of deterioration, so as to maintain soil fertility and productivity |
| Crop Rotation | the practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients in the soil, and combat pest and weed pressure |
| Contour Plowing | follows the contours of hills and slopes, rather than orienting crop rows up and down a slope |
| Conservation Plowing | a method used by farmers to reduce soil erosion between crop harvesting and next crop planting |
| Biodiversity | the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem |
| Keystone Species | an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem |
| Endangered Species | any species that is at risk of extinction because of a sudden rapid decrease in its population or a loss of its critical habitat |
| Threaten Species | any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future |
| Extinction | the full or complete wipe-out of a population or species, or, the dying out or extermination of a species |
| Habitat Destruction | the elimination or alteration of the conditions necessary for animals and plants to survive |
| Habitat Fragmentation | the process during which a large expanse of habitat is transformed into a number of smaller patches of smaller total area isolated from each other by a matrix of habitats unlike the origina |
| Poaching | the illegal trafficking and killing of wildlife |
| Captive Breeding | the breeding of wild animals in places such as zoos, especially animals which have become rare in the wild. |
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