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Science Vocab #5
Ecology Vocabulary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Autotroph | an organism that can produce its own food using light, water, carbon dioxide, or other chemicals |
| Heterotroph | an organism that relies on eating other organisms to get food. |
| Organism | an individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form |
| Habitat | a place where an organism makes its home |
| Biotic factor | a living organism that shapes its environment |
| Abiotic factor | a non-living part of an ecosystem that shapes its environment |
| Species | a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring |
| Population | a group of individuals of the same species living and interbreeding within a given area |
| Community | a group of species that are commonly found together |
| Ecosystem | a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. |
| Ecology | the study of the environment |
| Immigration | an animal establishes a home in a habitat because it has resources it can utilize or because the habitat is ideal for them |
| Emigration | 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 | a species' average population size in a particular habitat |
| Natural selection | a mechanism of evolution |
| Adaptation | a modification of an organism or its parts that makes it more fit for existence |
| Niche | the role an organism plays in a community |
| Competition | a biological interaction between or among the same or different organisms where the organisms fight for resources |
| Predation | the ecological process by which energy is transferred from living animal to living animal based on the behavior of a predator that captures and kills a prey before eating it |
| Mutualism | an interaction between individuals of different species that results in positive (beneficial) effects on per capita reproduction and/or survival of the interacting populations |
| Commensalism | a relationship between individuals of two species in which one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without either harming or benefiting the latter |
| 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 on or in a host organism and gets its food from or at the expense of its host |
| Host | a larger organism that harbours a smaller organism |
| Succession | the process by which the mix of species and habitat in an area changes over time |
| Primary succession | type of ecological succession (the evolution of a biological community's ecological structure) in which plants and animals first colonize a barren, lifeless habitat |
| Pioneer species | the species that first colonize new habitats created by disturbance |
| Secondary succession | the re-establishment or re-colonization process of a full-fledged ecological community from the remnants of the soil after an ecological disturbance |
| Producer | An autotrophic organism capable of producing complex organic compounds from simple inorganic molecules through the process of photosynthesis (using light energy) or through chemosynthesis (using chemical energy) |
| Consumer | An organism that generally obtains food by feeding on other organisms or organic matter due to lack of the ability to manufacture own food from inorganic sources |
| Herbivore | an animal that feeds on plants. |
| Carnivore | an animal that feeds on flesh. |
| Omnivore | an animal or person that eats food of both plant and animal origin |
| Scavenger | an organism that mostly consumes decaying biomass, such as meat or rotting plant material |
| Decomposer | an organism whose ecological function involves the recycling of nutrients by performing the natural process of decomposition as it feeds on decaying organisms |
| Food chain | to the order of events in an ecosystem, where one living organism eats another organism, and later that organism is consumed |
| Food web | consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem |
| Energy pyramid | a graphical representation of the energy found within the trophic levels of an ecosystem |
| Nitrogen fixation | he conversion of atmospheric dinitrogen (N2) to ammonia (NH3) under the combined action of biological and chemical activities |
| Biome | A major ecological community of organisms adapted to a particular climatic or environmental condition |
| Climate | the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period. |
| Desert | an area of land that receives no more than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of precipitation a year |
| Rain Forest | a luxuriant, dense forest rich in biodiversity, found typically in tropical areas with consistently heavy rainfall. |
| Emergent layer | the topmost layer of a rainforest |
| Canopy | he above-ground portion of vegetation in forests consisting of the tops of trees forming a kind of ceiling |
| Understory | an underlying layer of vegetation |
| Grassland | a large open area of country covered with grass, especially one used for grazing |
| Savanna | a grassy plain in tropical and subtropical regions, with few trees |
| Deciduous tree | Trees and shrubs that, unlike evergreens, lose their leaves and become dormant during the winter |
| Boreal forest | forests growing in high-latitude environments where freezing temperatures occur for 6 to 8 months and in which trees are capable of reaching a minimum height of 5 m and a canopy cover of 10% |
| Coniferous tree | trees that bear their seeds in cones |
| Tundra | the coldest of all the biomes |
| Permafrost | a permanently frozen layer on or under 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 | the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately 200 meters |
| Biogeograpy | the branch of biology that deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals |
| Continental drift | the gradual movement of the continents across the earth's surface through geological time |
| Dispersal | an ecological process that involves the movement of an individual or multiple individuals away from the population in which they were born to another location |
| Exotic species | organisms that have been introduced into an area outside their normal distribution |
| Point source | a situation where large quantities of pollutants are emitted from a single, discrete source |
| Nonpoint source | a source of pollution that issues from widely distributed or pervasive environmental elements |
| Biodegradable | the ability of things to get decomposed by the action of micro-organisms such as bacteria or fungi biological while getting assimilated into the natural environment. There's no ecological harm during the process |
| Natural resource | materials from the Earth that are used to support life and meet people's needs |
| Soil conservation | a combination of practices used to protect the soil from degradation |
| 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 | plowing along the contours of the land in order to minimize soil erosion |
| 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 | A species that has so little of them left on the planet that they are almost extinct |
| Threatened species | any species which is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future |
| Extinction | When a species is completley gone and there ore none of them left on the planet |
| Habitat destruction | he elimination or alteration of the conditions necessary for animals and plants to survive |
| Habitat fragmentation | a process during which a large expanse of habitat is transformed into a number of patches of a smaller total area |
| Poaching | illegally hunt or catch (game or fish) on land that is not one's own or in contravention of official protection. |
| Captive breeding | the process of keeping plants or animals in controlled environments |
Created by:
Corrin Snow Burrell
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