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APES Unit 2 Vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| biodiversity | the diversity of life forms in an environment |
| biological diversity | different kinds of life in one area |
| ecosystem | a particular location on Earth with interacting biotic and abiotic components |
| species richness | the number of species in a given area |
| biodiversity hotspot | an area that contains a high proportion of all the species found on Earth |
| ecosystem services | the processes by which life-supporting resources such as clean water, timber, fisheries, and agricultural crops are produced |
| provisioning | goods/products directly provided to humans for sale/use by ecosystems; goods/products are made from natural resources that ecoystems provide |
| regulating | benefit provided by ecosystem processes that moderate natural conditions like climate change and air quality |
| supporting | natural ecosystems support processes we do ourselves making them less costly and easier for us |
| cultural | revenue from recreational activities and profits from scientific discoveries made in ecosystem |
| anthropogenic | derived from human activities |
| biogeography | the branch of biology that deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals. |
| community | all of the populations of organisms within a given area |
| specialist species | animals that acquire very unique resources |
| generalist species | Species that can live in many different types of environments, and have a varied diet |
| limited resource | a resource that a population cannot live without and that occurs in quantities lower than the population would require to increase in size. |
| invasive species | a species that spreads rapidly across large areas |
| non-native species | organisms that do not occur naturally in an area, but are introduced as the result of deliberate or accidental human activities. |
| native species | species that live in their historical range, typically where they have lived for thousands or millions of years. |
| ecological tolerance | Capacity of an organism to tolerate certain conditions or changes to its environment, due to physiological and morphological properties. |
| salinity | dissolved salt content in a body of water |
| range of tolerance | the limits to the abiotic conditions that species can tolerate |
| disturbance | an event, caused by physical, chemical, or biological agents, resulting in changes in population size or community composition |
| periodic | occurs with regular frequency |
| episodic | occasional events with irregular frequency |
| random | no regular frequency |
| climate | the average weather that occurs in a given region over a long period of time |
| sea level | the base level for measuring elevation and depth on Earth. |
| glacial ice | an extended mass of ice formed from snow falling and accumulating over the years and moving very slowly |
| migration | to move into or come to live in a region or community especially as part of a large-scale and continuing movement of population |
| adaptation | a trait that improves an individual's fitness |
| phylogenetic diversity | measure of biodiversity, based on phylogeny (the tree of life) |
| evolution | a change in the genetic composition of a population over time. |
| natural selection | process by which individuals that are better suited to their environment survive and reproduce most successfully; also called survival of the fittest. |
| speciation | the evolution of new species |
| reproductive isolation | the result of two populations within a species evolving separately to the point that they can no longer interbreed and produce viable offspring |
| geographic isolation | physical separation of a group of individuals from others of the same species |
| succession | the change in either species composition, structure, or architecture of vegetation through time. |
| keystone species | a species that plays a far more important role in its community than its relative abundance might suggest |
| primary succession | ecological succession occurring on surfaces that are initially devoid of soil |
| secondary succession | the succession of plant life that occurs in areas that have been disturbed but have not lost their soil. |
| genetic diversity | a measure of the genetic variation among individuals in a population |
| species diversity | the number of species in a region or in a particular type of habitat |
| mutation | a random change in the genetic code produced by a mistake in the copying process |
| recombination | the genetic process by which one chromosome breaks off and attaches to another chromosome during reproductive cell division |
| fitness | an individual's ability to survive and reproduce |
Created by:
harini.krishnan
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