Term | Definition |
1. Ecology | the study of how living things interact with each other and their environment |
2. Ecologist | a scientist who studies ecology |
4. Biotic Factor | the living part of an ecosystem |
5. Abiotic Factor | the nonliving parts of an ecosystem |
6. Populations | all the members of one species in a particular area |
7. Communities | all the different populations that live together in an area |
8. Population Density | the number of individuals in a specific area |
9. Immigration | moving into a population |
10. Emigration | leaving a population |
11. Limiting Factors | an environmental factor that prevents a population from increasing |
12. Carrying Capacity | the largest population that an environment can support |
13. Niche | an organism’s particular role, or how it makes its living. A niche includes the activities and behaviors that help it satisfy the need for food, water, living space, and reproduction |
14. Competition | the struggle between organisms to survive in a habitat with limited resources |
15. Predation | an interaction in which one organism hunts and kills another for food |
16. Predator | an animal that hunts and kills other animals for food |
17. Prey | an animal that a predator feeds upon |
18. Symbiosis | a close relationship between two species that benefits at least one species |
19. Mutualism | a relationship in which both species benefit |
20. Commensalism | A relationship in which one species benefits and the other species is neither helped nor harmed |
21. Parasitism | It involves one organism living on or inside another organism and harming it. A parasite lives on or in a host |
22. Producer | an organism that can make its own food |
23. Consumer | an organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms |
24. Herbivore | an animal that eats only plants |
24. Herbivore | an animal that eats only other animals |
26. Omnivore | an animal that eats both plants and other animals |
27. Scavenger | an animal that feeds on the remains of decaying organisms |
28. Decomposer | an organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms |
29. Food Chain | a series of events in which one organism eats another and obtains energy. It shows one way energy flows through an ecosystem |
30. Food Web | the pattern of overlapping food chains in an ecosystem. It shows various ways energy can move through an ecosystem |
31. Energy Pyramid | a diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one feeding level to another in a food chain |
32. Water Cycle | - the processes of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation that recycles our water supply |
33. Evaporation | the process by which molecules of a liquid absorb energy and change to the gas state |
34. Condensation | a gas changes to a liquid |
35. Precipitation | rain, snow, sleet or hail that falls from the sky |
36. Transpiration | evaporation of water from the leaves of a plant |
37. Carbon and Oxygen | The producers use the carbon from the carbon dioxide they take in to produce other carbon containing molecules. They give off oxygen which the consumers take in |
38. Nitrogen Cycle | nitrogen moves from the air to the soil, into living things, and back into the air |
39. Nitrogen Fixation | the process of changing free nitrogen gas into a usable form of nitrogen |