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Ecology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Autotroph | An autotroph is an organism that produces its own organic food using inorganic substances (like CO\({}_{2}\)) and energy from sunlight or chemical reactions. |
| Heterotroph | A heterotroph is an organism that cannot produce its own food and must obtain energy and carbon by consuming other organisms, such as plants or animals. |
| Organism | An organism is any individual living entity—such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus—capable of growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continuous self-maintenance. |
| Habitat | A habitat is the natural environment where a particular species of organism (plant, animal, or microorganism) lives, grows, and reproduces. |
| Biotic factor | Biotic factors are the living components of an ecosystem that shape their environment, including organisms, their interactions, and waste. |
| Abiotic factor | An abiotic factor is a non-living part of an ecosystem that shapes its environment and influences the survival and reproduction of living organisms. |
| Species | A species is the most specific level of biological classification. |
| Population | The study of how and why the number of individuals in a group changes over time |
| Community | A collaborative form of scientific research where professional researchers and community members work together to address local priorities and advance scientific knowledge. |
| Ecosystem | An interdisciplinary field that studies how living organisms (the biotic) and their physical environment (the abiotic) interact as a functional, integrated unit. |
| Ecology | The scientific study of the relationships between living organisms—including humans—and their physical environment. |
| Immigration | An interdisciplinary research field that examines why people move, how they migrate, and the long-term effects of these movements on both host and home countries. |
| Emigration | The scientific study of the act of leaving one's country or region of residence to settle elsewhere. |
| Population density | The study of how organisms are distributed across a specific area and the forces that govern their concentration or dispersal. |
| Limiting factor | The study of how specific environmental variables restrict the growth, abundance, or distribution of an organism or a population. |
| Carrying capacity | The study of the maximum population size of a species that an environment can sustainably support indefinitely. |
| Natural selection | The scientific process by which organisms with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. |
| Adaptation | The evolutionary process where populations of organisms become better suited to their environment over generations, driven by natural selection acting on heritable traits. |
| Niche | The unique, functional role and "job" a species plays within its ecosystem, including how it survives, what it eats, its predators, and its environmental interactions. |
| Competition | A biotic interaction between organisms (same or different species) requiring the same limited resources—such as food, water, light, or territory—in a shared environment. |
| Predation | A biological interaction where one organism (the predator) hunts, kills, and consumes another organism (the prey) for nutrition. |
| Mutualism | A type of symbiotic, "win-win" ecological interaction where individuals of different species both benefit from their association. |
| Commensalism | A type of symbiotic relationship in ecology where one organism (the commensal) benefits—obtaining food, shelter, or transportation—while the other organism (the host) is neither helped nor harmed. |
| Parasitism | A close, long-term biological relationship between two species where one organism (the parasite) lives on or inside another (the host), obtaining nutrients at the host's expense. |
| Parasite | An organism that lives on or inside another organism, known as the host, obtaining nutrients at the host's expense. |
| Host | A living organism—animal, plant, or microorganism—that harbours a smaller organism (a parasite, pathogen, or symbiont), providing it with food, shelter, and essential resources for survival. |
| Succession | The gradual and orderly process of change in the species composition, structure, and habitat of an ecosystem over time. |
| Primary succession | The process of ecological change that occurs in newly formed, lifeless environments devoid of soil and vegetation, such as lava flows, retreating glaciers, or sand dunes. |
| Pioneer species | The hardy, fast-growing organisms that are the first to colonize barren, newly formed, or disturbed ecosystems. |
| Secondary succession | The process of ecological community re-establishment following a major disturbance—such as wildfire, flood, or human activity—that destroys existing vegetation but leaves the soil intact. |
| Producer | Organisms that create their own organic food matter using energy from sunlight (photosynthesis) or inorganic chemical reactions (chemosynthesis). |
| Consumer | An organism that cannot produce its own food and must consume other organisms—plants, animals, or both—to obtain energy. |
| Herbivore | An animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to feed primarily on autotrophs—plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria—for energy. |
| Carnivore | An organism, typically an animal, that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue (meat), whether through hunting or scavenging. |
| Omnivore | An organism that habitually derives energy and nutrients from both plant and animal matter. |
| Scavenger | An organism that primarily consumes decaying biomass, such as meat (carrion) or rotting plant material, rather than hunting or killing prey. |
| Decomposer | Organisms—primarily bacteria, fungi, and invertebrates—that break down dead or decaying organic matter into simpler substances, such as carbon and nitrogen, recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem. |
| Food chain | A linear sequence that shows how energy and nutrients are transferred from one organism to another within an ecosystem. |
| Food web | A natural, interconnected network of multiple food chains that shows how energy and nutrients circulate through an ecosystem. |
| Energy pyramid | A graphical model representing the flow of energy through trophic levels in an ecosystem, with producers at the base and consumers above. |
| Nitrogen fixation | Essential for life, this process enables plants to build proteins and grow. It occurs through biological fixation by microbes, lightning strikes, or industrial methods. |
| Biome | A large, distinct geographical region characterized by its climate, soil type, and dominant plant and animal communities. |
| Climate | The interdisciplinary study of Earth’s climate system, analyzing the atmosphere, oceans, land, and ice to understand natural climate forces and human-driven changes. |
| Desert | A barren or partially barren area of land characterized by extreme aridity, typically receiving less than 250 mm (10 inches) of annual precipitation. |
| Rain forest | A dense, high-precipitation, and highly humid ecosystem characterized by a continuous, closed tree canopy and immense biodiversity. |
| Emergent layer | The highest stratum in a tropical rainforest, consisting of a small number of towering, widely spaced trees that rise above the dense, continuous canopy. |
| Canopy | The upper, structural layer of a forest or wooded ecosystem, formed by the mature, overlapping crowns of trees and their associated foliage. |
| Understory | Studies the vegetation layer—including saplings, shrubs, and herbs—growing beneath the main forest canopy but above the forest floor. |
| Grassland | A terrestrial biome or ecosystem dominated by grasses, sedges, and other non-woody plants (herbs) rather than trees or shrubs. |
| Savanna | A mixed woodland-grassland biome characterized by a continuous ground cover of grasses, with scattered trees or shrubs that allow light to reach the ground (open canopy). |
| Deciduous tree | A type of woody plant that sheds all of its leaves annually, typically in the autumn, before entering a period of winter dormancy. |
| Boreal forest | The world's largest terrestrial biome, a northern coniferous forest stretching across high-latitude regions of North America, Europe, and Asia. |
| Coniferous tree | A vascular, woody plant belonging to the division Pinophyta (or Coniferae), characterized by bearing seeds within cones and typically possessing evergreen, needle- or scale-like leaves. |
| Tundra | A vast, treeless biome characterized by extremely cold temperatures, low precipitation, and short growing seasons, generally found in the Arctic or at high elevations (alpine). |
| Permafrost | Permafrost is defined by scientists as ground—soil, rock, or sediment—that remains at or below 0. |
| Estuary | A partially enclosed, coastal body of brackish water—a mixture of freshwater from rivers or streams and saltwater from the ocean. |
| Intertidal zone | The coastal area between the highest high tide and lowest low tide, defined by being submerged at high tide and exposed to air at low tide. |
| Neritic zone | The shallow marine environment extending from the low-tide mark to the edge of the continental shelf, usually at depths up to 200 meters. |
| Biogeograpy | The scientific study of the spatial distribution of species, ecosystems, and biodiversity across geographical areas and through geological time. |
| Continental drift | The scientific theory that Earth’s continents move horizontally relative to one another over geologic time, having once been joined in a single supercontinent called Pangaea. |
| Dispersal | The movement of individual organisms—including animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria—away from their birth site (natal dispersal) or breeding site (breeding dispersal) to a new area where they settle and reproduce. |
| Exotic species | A plant or animal introduced by human activity—either intentionally or accidentally—to an area outside its native range. |
| Point source | A single, identifiable, and localized origin—such as a pipe, ditch, ship, or smokestack—from which pollutants, energy, or waves are released. |
| Nonpoint source | Water contamination that does not originate from a single, discrete source (like a pipe), but rather from diffuse, widespread land runoff, precipitation, or atmospheric deposition. |
| Biodegradable | Materials that can be broken down by microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, or algae) into natural elements like water, carbon dioxide, and biomass. |
| Natural resource | Materials, substances, and energy sources occurring in nature without human intervention, which are utilized for economic, material, or aesthetic benefits. |
| Soil conservation | The science and practice of protecting soil from degradation, erosion, and fertility loss caused by natural or human activities. |
| Crop rotation | The scientific practice of planting different, specific crops in succession on the same land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients, and break pest cycles. |
| Contour plowing | An agricultural soil conservation technique where farmers plow, plant, and cultivate across a slope's natural elevation contour lines rather than straight up and down. |
| Conservation plowing | A farming practice that minimizes soil disturbance and leaves at least 30% of the previous crop's residue (such as stalks, leaves, or stems) on the surface after planting. |
| Biodiversity | The scientific study of the variety of all living things on Earth, encompassing the vast differences between species, the genetic variations within those species, and the complexity of ecosystems they form. |
| Keystone species | An organism—animal, plant, or microbe—that plays a uniquely large, essential role in structuring its ecosystem relative to its often low population size. |
| Endangered species | A plant or animal facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild. |
| Threatened species | A plant, animal, or fungus at risk of extinction in the near future. |
| Extinction | The permanent disappearance of a species, occurring when the last member of that population dies. |
| Habitat destruction | The process by which natural landscapes are altered or destroyed to a point where they can no longer support their native species, leading to reduced biodiversity and species extinction. |
| Habitat fragmentation | The ecological process where large, continuous habitats are divided into smaller, isolated patches, usually caused by human land-use changes like road building, agriculture, or urban development. |
| Poaching | The illegal hunting, capturing, or harvesting of wild plants and animals in violation of local, national, or international conservation laws. |
| Captive breading | The process of breeding rare or endangered animals in controlled environments—such as zoos, wildlife reserves, or specialized facilities—to increase population numbers, maintain genetic diversity, and prevent extinction. |
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