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Ecology Barba
Ecology Flashcards
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ecology | scientific study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment |
| Biosphere | part of Earth in which life exists including land,water, and air or atmosphere |
| Species | group of similar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| Population | group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area |
| Community | assemblage of different populations that live together in a defined area |
| Ecosystem | collection of all the organisms that live in a particular place,together with their nonliving 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 interactions 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 within a given trophic level |
| Biogeochemical cycle | process in which elements chemical compounds, and other forms of matter are passes 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 |
| Green House 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 organsim lives and the way in which the organism uses those conditions |
| Logistic Growth | growth pattern in which a population'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 |
| 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 stains and the use of modern agricultural techniques to increase yeilds 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 harmuful substance in organisms at higher trophic levels in a food chain or food web |