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AP Bio U8
Ecology Unit 8
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Abiotic Factor | a non-living part of an ecosystem that shapes its environment. |
| Abundance | the number of individuals per species |
| Adaptation | the biological mechanism by which organisms adjust to new environments or to changes in their current environment |
| Age Structure | The composition of a population in terms of the proportions of individuals of different ages |
| Biodiversity | the variety of life on Earth at all its levels, from genes to ecosystems |
| Biome | an area classified according to the species that live in that location |
| Biotic Factor | a living organism that shapes its environment |
| Carbon Cycle | nature's way of reusing carbon atoms, which travel from the atmosphere into organisms in the Earth and then back into the atmosphere over and over again |
| Carrying Capacity | a species' average population size in a particular habitat |
| Climate Change | altered global weather patterns, including a worldwide increase in temperature, due largely to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. |
| Community | an interacting group of various species in a common location |
| Conservation | the science of protecting and preserving ecosystems and biodiversity that have been negatively affected by human intervention |
| Decomposer | organism that breaks down dead organic material |
| Demography | the study of the characteristics of populations |
| Density Dependent Factor | any force that affects the size of a population of living things in response to the density of the population |
| Detritivore | an organism (such as an earthworm or a fungus) that feeds on dead and decomposing organic matter. |
| Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) | the rate at which solar energy is captured in sugar molecules during photosynthesis |
| Habitat | the area and resources used by a particular species (the habitat of a species) or an assemblage of animals and plants together with their abiotic environment. |
| Hydrologic Cycle | cycle that involves the continuous circulation of water in the Earth-atmosphere system |
| Imprinting | a form of learning in which a very young animal fixes its attention on the first object with which it has visual, auditory, or tactile experience and thereafter follows that object. |
| Interspecific Competition | the competition between individuals of different species |
| Intraspecific Competition | a competition between individuals from the same species (cospecifics) |
| Introduced Species | a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, directly or indirectly, and either deliberately or accidnetally |
| K-Selection | K refers to the carrying capacity, and means that the babies are entering a competitive world, in a population at or near its carrying capacity. |
| Keystone Species | an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem |
| Learning | The cognitive process of acquiring skill or knowledge; the child's acquisition of language |
| Life History | he sequence of events related to survival and reproduction that occur from birth through death. |
| Nitrogen Cycle | a repeating cycle of processes during which nitrogen moves through both living and non-living things |
| Nutrient Cycle | a repeated pathway of a particular nutrient or element from the environment through one or more organisms and back to the environment |
| Parasite | an organism that lives on or in a host organism and gets its food from or at the expense of its host |
| Photoautotroph | a photosynthetic organism (such as a green plant or a cyanobacterium) that utilizes energy from light to synthesize organic molecules |
| Population Growth | the change in the amount of individuals of a specials in an area over time. |
| Population Size | the number of individuals in a population |
| Predator | an organism that consumes all or part of the body of another—living or recently killed—organism, which is its prey |
| Primary Consumer | make up the second trophic level. They are also called herbivores. They eat primary producers—plants or algae—and nothing else |
| Quadrat | usually a square made of wire. It may contain further wires to mark off smaller areas inside, such as 5 × 5 squares or 10 × 10 squares. The organisms underneath, usually plants, can be identified and counted |
| Rate of Increase | The rate, or speed, at which the number of organisms in a population increases |
| Resilience | the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly |
| Saprophyte | organism that feeds on nonliving organic matter known as detritus at a microscopic level |
| Secondary Consumer | a carnivore that feeds only upon herbivores. |
| Ecological Niche | the role an organism plays in a community |
| Ecological Pyramid | a graphical representation of the energy found within the trophic levels of an ecosystem |
| Ecological Succession | the process by which the mix of species and habitat in an area changes over time |
| Ecosystem | a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life |
| Ecosystem Stability | the capability of a natural system to apply self—regulating mechanisms so as to return to a steady state after an outside disturbance |
| Endangered Species | a type of organism that is threatened by extinction |
| Life Tables | records matters of life and death for a population |
| Limiting Factor | anything that constrains a population's size and slows or stops it from growing |
| Logistic Growth | the process of a population's growth rate decreasing as the number of individuals in the population increases |
| Mark and Recapture | a method commonly used in ecology to estimate an animal population's size where it is impractical to count every individual |
| Migration | the seasonal movement of animals from one habitat to another in search of food, better conditions, or reproductive needs |
| Mutualism | a type of symbiotic relationship where all species involved benefit from their interactions. |
| Net Primary Productivity (NPP) | gross primary productivity minus the rate of energy loss to metabolism and maintenance |
| Species Diversity | the number and relative abundance of species found in a given biological organisation |
| Survivorship Curve | the graphic representation of the number of individuals in a population that can be expected to survive to any specific age. |
| Symbiosis | a close ecological relationship between the individuals of two (or more) different species |
| Ten Percent Rule | only about 10 percent of energy stored as biomass in a trophic level is passed from one level to the next |
| Threatened Species | those species most at risk of becoming extinct in the near future |
| Trophic Efficiency | A measure of the efficiency of energy flow between trophic levels in a *food chain |
| Trophic Level | step in a nutritive series, or food chain, of an ecosystem |
| R Selection | r is for reproduction. Such a species puts only a small investment of resources into each offspring, but produces many such low effort babies. Such species are also generally not very invested in protecting or rearing these young |
Created by:
Micah Wixom
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