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Chapter 1
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| organism | a living thing. |
| habitat | an environment that provides the things a specific organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce. |
| biotic factor | a living or once living part of an organism's habitat. |
| abiotic factor | a non living 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 in a particular area, a long with their non living 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 an 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 causes 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 environment are most likely to survive and reproduce. |
| adaptation | an inherited behavior or physical characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce in it's 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 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 |
| commensalism | |
| parisitism | |
| parasite | |
| host |