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Ch. 1 Lessons 1-3
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Organism | a living thing |
| Habitat | an environment that provides the things a specific organism needs to grow, live, and reproduce |
| Biotic Factor | a living or once living part of an organism's habitat |
| Abiotic Factor | a nonliving part of an organism's habitat |
| Species | a group of similar organisms that can mate with each other and produce offspring that can also mate and reproduce |
| Population | all the members of one species living in the same area |
| Community | all the different populations that live together in a particular area |
| Ecosystem | the community of organisms that live together in a certain area, along with their nonliving environment |
| Ecology | the study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment |
| Birth Rate | the number of births per 1,000 individuals for a certain time period |
| Death Rate | the number of deaths per 1,000 individuals for a certain time period |
| Immigration | movement of individuals into a population's area |
| Emigration | movement of individuals out of a population's area |
| Population Density | the number of individuals in an area of a specific size |
| Limiting Factor | an environmental factor that courses a population to decrease in size |
| Carrying Capacity | the largest population that a particular environment can support |
| Natural Selection | the process by which organisms that are best adapted to their own environment are most likely to survive and reproduce |
| Adaptation | an inherited behavior or physical characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment |
| Niche | how an organism makes its living and interacts with the biotic and abiotic factors in its habitat |
| Competition | the struggle between organisms to survive as they attempt to use the same limited resources in the same place at the same time |
| Predation | an interaction in which one organism kills another for food or nutrients |
| Predator | the organism that does the killing in a predation interaction |
| Prey | an organism that is killed and eaten by another organism in a predation interaction |
| Symbiosis | any relationship in which two species live closely together and that benefits at least one of the species |
| Mutualism | a type of symbiosis in which both species benefit from living together |
| Commensalism | a type of symbiosis between two species in which one species benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed |
| Parasitism | a type of symbiosis in which one organism lives with, on, or in a host and harms it |
| Parasite | an organism that benefits from living with, on, or in a host in a parasitism interaction |
| Host | an organism that a parasite live with, in, or on, and provides a source of energy or a suitable environment for the parasite to live |