click below
click below
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Ecology Terms
Grade 9 Science Ecology Trems and Discriptions
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| 1. Ecology | Study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment in a system. |
| 2. Abiotic | Non living things, physical things such as, minerels, air or things measured such as temperature, hours of daylight, salt concentration. |
| 3. Biotic | Living, these factors are organism such as plants, animals, mushrooms, bacteria, algae. |
| 4. Ecosystem | Any network of interacting living & non-living factors. |
| 5. Natural Ecosystem | A natural ecosystem is neither planned nor maintained by people. |
| 6. Artificial Ecosystem | Artificial Ecosystem is planned and maintained by people. Examples: City, Zoo, Aquarium, and farms. |
| 7. Species | A group of similar organisms in an ecosystem that can reproduce with each other. |
| 8. Population | A group of memebers of the same species that live in the same area. |
| 9. Community | Populations of different species that live in the same area. |
| 10. Niche | All the interactions of a given species with its ecosystem. |
| 11. Biome | Large geographical region that contains similar ecosystems. |
| 12. Terrestrial | Land-based / aquatic-water based |
| 13. Biosphere | A part of our planet, including water, land and air, where life exits. Biomes combine to form this. |
| 14. Herbivores | An animal that eats ONLY plants |
| 15. Carnivores | An animal that eats mostly meat. |
| Omnivores | An animal that eats both plants and meat. |
| Predators | Animals that catches and feeds off of other live animals. |
| Scavengers | An animal that mostly eats decaying biomass. |
| Parasites | Obtain |
| Detrovores | A consumer that feeds on organic matter |
| Decomposers | A special group of consumers that break down organic matter and release the nutrients back into the ecosystem. |
| Heterotroph | Organisms that must feed on other organisms to obtain energy |
| Food Chains | Show A step-by-step sequence of who eats whom in an ecosystem and the one-way flow of energy from the producer to the top level consumer. |
| photosynthesis | The process plants use to produce carbohydrates from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight. (CO2+H20 --> sugar + O2) |
| Biodiversity | Number and range of different organisms in an area. |
| Toxins | |
| Bioaccumulation | Gradual build-up of chemicals in an organism’s body. |
| Respiratiion | |
| Extirpated | Species that no longer exist in a particular region but still occurs elsewhere. |
| Ampibious | Born in water, breathing with gills but can live on land or in water. |
| Carrying Capacity | maximum number of individuals that an ecosystem can support without reducing its ability to support future generations of the same species. |
| Commensalism | Type of symbiosis in which one species benefits from a relationship without helping or harming the other species. |
| Mutualism | A type of symbiosis in which both species benefit from the symbiotic partnership. |
| Symiosis | Close interaction between two different species in which members of one species lives in on or near members of another species |
| Environment | All living things and nonliving things that exist on Earth |
| Habitat | The natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. |