Term | Definition |
Abiotic factor | the nonliving factors in an organism's environment |
Biological community | a group of interacting populations that occupy the same geographic area at the same time |
Biome | a large group of ecosystems that share the same climate and have similar types of communities |
Biosphere | the portion of Earth that supports life |
Biotic factor | the living factors in an organism's environment |
Commensalism | a relationship in which one organism benefits and the other organism is neither harmed nor helped |
Ecology | the scientific discipline in which the relationships among living organisms and the interaction the organisms have with their environment are studied |
Ecosystem | a biological community and all of the abiotic factors that affect it |
Habitat | an area where an organism lives |
Mutualism | the relationship between two or more organisms that live closely together and benefit from each other |
Niche | the role or position that an organism has in its environment |
Parasitism | a symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits at the expense of another organism |
Population | individual organisms of a single species that share the same geographic location at the same time |
Predation | the act of one organism consuming another organism for food |
Symbiosis | the close relationship that exist when two or more species live together |
Autotroph | an organism that collects energy from sunlight or inorganic substances to produce food |
Biomass | the total mass of organisms in a given area or volume (organic matter used as a fuel, especially in a power station for the generation of electricity |
Carnivore | heterotrophs that prey on other heterotrophs |
Detritivore | heterotroph that decomposes organic material and returns the nutrients to soil, air, and water, making the nutrients available to other organisms. |
Food chain | a simple model that shows how energy flows through an ecosystem |
Food web | a model representing the many interconnected food chains and pathways in which energy flows through a group of organisms |
Herbivore | a heterotroph that eats only plants |
Heterotroph | an organism that gets its energy requirements by consuming other organisms |
Omnivore | organisms that eat both plants and animals |
Trophic level | each step in the food chain or food web |
Biochemical cycle | the exchange of matter through the biosphere |
Denitrification | process in which fixed nitrogen compounds are converted back into nitrogen gas returned to the atmosphere |
Matter | anything that takes up space and has mass |
Nitrogen fixation | the process of capture and conversion of nitrogen into a form that is useable by plants |
Nutrient | a chemical substance that an organism must obtain from its environment to sustain life and undergo life process |