Term | Definition |
Ecology (p 388) | study of the interactions among living things and their surroundings. |
Ecosystem (p389) | collection of the organisms and nonliving things, such as climate, soil, water,and rocks, in an area. |
Community (p389) | collection of all of the different populations that that live in one area. |
Biome (p389) | regional or global community of organisms characterized by the climate conditions and plant communities that thrive there |
Autotroph | organism that obtains its energy from abiotic sources, such as sunlight or inorganic chemicals. |
Consumer | organism that obtain its energy and nutrients by eating other organisms |
Producer (p398) | organism that its energy from abiotic sources, such as sunlight or inorganic chemicals. |
Heterotroph | organism that obtains its energy and nutrients by consuming other organisms. |
Chemosynthesis | process by which ATP is synthesized by using chemicals as an energy source instead of light. |
Food Chain (p400) | model that links organisms by their feeding relationships |
Herbivore | organism that eats only plants |
Carnivore | organism that obtains energy by eating only animals. |
Omnivore | organism that eats both plants and animals |
Detritivore | organism that eats dead organic matter |
Decomposer | detritivore that breaks down organic matter into simpler compounds, returning nutrients back into an ecosystem |
Generalists | species that does not reply on a single source of prey |
Trophic Levels | level of nourishment in a food chain. |
Food Web | model that shows the complex network of feeding relationships within an ecosystem |