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ecology farhat
flashcards for ecology section of textbook
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| ecology | the scientific study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment |
| biosphere | contains the combined portions of the planet in which all of life exists, including land, water, and air, or atmosphere |
| species | a group of organisms so similar to one another that they can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| population | group of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the same area |
| community | assemblage of different populations that live together in a defined area |
| ecosystem | a collection of all organisms that live in a particular place, together with their nonliving, or physical, environment |
| autotroph | organism that can capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and use it to produce its own food from inorganic compounds; also called a producer |
| heterotroph | organism that obtains energy from the foods it consumes; also called a consumer |
| food web | network of complex interactioins formed by the feeding relationships among the various organisms in an ecosystem |
| trophic level | step in a food chain or food web |
| biomass | total amount of living tissue witin a given trophic level |
| biogeochemical cycle | process in which elements, chemical compounds, and other forms of matter are passed from one organism to another and from one part of the biosphere to another |
| limiting nutrient | single nutrient that either is scarce or cycles very slowly, limiting the growth of organisms in an ecosystem |
| weather | condition of Earth's atmosphere at a particular time and place |
| climate | average, year-after-year conditions of temperature and precipitation in a particular region |
| greenhouse effect | natural situation in which heat is retained in Earth's atmosphere by carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor,and other gases |
| biotic factor | biological influence on organisms within an ecosystem |
| abiotic factor | physical, or nonliving, factor that shapes an ecosystem |
| niche | full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives and the way in which the organism uses those conditions |
| logistic growth | growth pattern in which a populaton's growth rate slows or stops following a period of exponential growth |
| carrying capacity | largest number of individuals of a population that a given environment can support |
| demography | scientific study of human populations |
| carrying capacity | largest number of individuals of a population that a given environment can support |
| demography | scientific study of human populations |
| demographic transition | change in a population from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates |
| green revolution | the development of highly productive crop strains and the use of modern agricultural techniques to increase yields of food crops |
| renewable resource | resource that can regenerate quickly and that is replaceable |
| pollutant | harmful material that can enter the biosphere through the land, air, or water |
| biodiversity | biological diversity; the sum total of the variety of organisms in the biosphere |
| biological magnification | increasing concentration of a harmful substance in organisms at higher trophic levels in a food chain or food web |
Created by:
ryanf2015
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