Term | Definition |
Ecology | The study of the interactions of living organisms with one another and with their environment |
Community | A group of various species that live in the same habitat and interact with each other |
Ecosystem | A community of organisms and their abiotic environment |
Biome | A large region characterized by a specific type of climate and certain types of plant and animal communities |
Abiotic | Describes living factors in the environment |
Biodiversity | Describes the nonliving part of environment, including water, rocks, light, and temperature |
Keystone species | The variety of organisms in a given area, the genetic variation within a population, the variety of species in a community, or the variety of communities in an ecosystem |
Producer | An organism that can make organic molecules from inorganic molecules. a photosynthetic or chemosynthetic autotroph that serves as the basic food source in an ecosystem |
Autotroph | An organism that produces its own nutrients from inorganic substances or from the environment instead of consuming other organisms |
Consumer | An organism that eats other organisms or organic matter instead of producing its own nutrients or obtaining nutrients from inorganic source |
Heterotroph | An organism that obtains organic food molecules by eating other organisms or their byproducts and that cannot synthesize organic compounds from inorganic materials |
Chemosynthesis | Process by which ATP is synthesized by using chemicals as an energy source instead of light |
Food chain | The pathway of energy transfer through various stages as a result of the feeding patterns of a series of organisms |
Herbivore | An organism that eats only plants |
Carnivore | An organism that eats animals |
Omnivore | An organism that eats both plants and animals |
Detritivore | Organism that eats dead organic matter |
Decomposer | An organism that feeds by breaking down organic matter from dead organisms; examples include bacteria and fungi |
Specialist | Consumer that eats only one type of organism |
Generalist | Species that does not rely on a single source of prey |
Trophic level | One of the steps in a food chain or food pyramid; examples include producers and primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers |
Food web | A diagram that shows the feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem |
Hydrologic cycle | Pathway of water from the atmosphere to Earth's surface, below ground, and back |
Biogeochemical cycle | The circulation of substances through living organisms from or to the environment |
Nitrogen fixation | The process by which gaseous nitrogen is converted into ammonia, a compound that organisms can use to make amino acids and other nitrogen-containing organic molecules |
Biomass | Total dry mass of all organisms in a given area |
Energy pyramid | A triangular diagram that shows an ecosystem's loss of energy, which results as energy passes through the ecosystem's food chain; each row in the pyramid represents a trophic level in an ecosystem |
Energy pyramid pt 2 | , and the area of a row represents the energy stored in that trophic level |