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Ecology Hornby
Biology terms
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is ecology? | scientific studies of interactions among organisms and their environment |
| What is a biosphere? | part of earth where in which life exists including land,water,air or atmosphere |
| What is a species? | group of similiar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| What is a population? | Group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area |
| What is a community? | Assemblage of different populations that live together in a defined area |
| What is a ecosystem? | Collection of all the organisms that live in a particular place, together with their nonliving environment |
| What is a 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 |
| What is a heterotroph? | organism that obtains energy from the food it consumes;also called a consumer |
| What is a food web? | network of complex interactions formed by the feeding relationships among the various organism in an ecosystem |
| What is trophic level? | Step in a food chain or food web |
| What is biomass? | total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level |
| What is a biogeochemical? | 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 |
| What is a limiting nutrient? | Single nutrient that that either is scarce or cycles very slowly, limiting the growth of organisms in an ecosystem |
| What is weather? | Condition of earths atmosphere at a particular time and place |
| What is climate? | average, year-after-year conditions of temperature and precipitation in a particular region |
| What is the Green House Effect? | natural situation in which heat is retained in earths atmosphere by carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and other gases |
| What is the biotic factor? | biological influence on organisms within an ecosystem |
| What is Abiotic factor? | physical, or nonliving, factor that shapes an ecosystem |
| What is a Niche? | full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives and the way in which the organism uses those conditions |
| What is logistic growth? | growth pattern in which a populations growth rate slows or stops following a period of exponential growth |
| What is carrying capacity? | largest number of individuals of a population that a given environment can support |
| What is demography? | scientific study of populations |
| What is a demographic transition? | changes in population from high birth and death rates |
| What is green revolution? | introduction of intensive farming practices that lead to a substancial increase in crop yields |
| What is a renewable resource? | resource that can regenerate quickly and that is replacable |
| What is pollutant? | harmful material that can enter the biosphere through the land, air, or water. |
| What is biodiversity? | biological diversity, the sum total of the variety of organism in the biosphere |
| What is biological magnification? | increasing concentration of a harmful substance in organisms at higher trophic levels in a food chain or food web |