| Question | Answer |
| ecology | scientific study of interactions among organsims and between organsims and their enviroment |
| biosphere | part of Earth in which life exsists including land, water, and air or atmoshere |
| species | a group of similar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| population | group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area |
| community | assemblage of a different populations that live together in a define area |
| ecosystem | collection of all the organisms that live in a perticular place, all together without their nonliving enviroment |
| autotroph | organism that can capture energy from sinlight or chemicals and use it to produce its own food from inorganic compounds; also called a producer |
| heterotrouph | organsi that obtains energy from the foods it consumes; also called a consumer |
| food web | network of complex interactions formed by the feeding relationships among the various organsims in an ecosystem |
| trophic level | step in a food chain or food web |
| biomass | total amount ot living tissue within a given trophic level |
| biogeochemical cyle | process in whcin elements, chemical compounds, and other forms of matter are passed from one organism to another and from one part of the bioshere to another |
| limiting nutrients | single nutrients that eitehr is scarce or cycles very slowly, limiting the growth of organisms in an ecosystem |
| weather | condition of Earth's atmosphere at a particular time and place |
| climate | average year-after-year conditions of temperature and precipitation |
| greenhouse effect | natural situation in which heat it retained in Earth's atmosphere |
| abiotic factor | physical, or nonliving, factor that shapes an ecosystem |
| niche | the wat in which the organisms use thoughs condtions |
| logistic growth | growth rate slows or stops following a period of expotential growth |
| caryying capacity | largest number of individuals of a population that a given enviroment can support |
| demography | scientific study of human populations |
| demographic transition | change in population from high birth and death rates to low brith and death rates |
| green revolution | techniques to increase yeilds of food crops |
| renewable resource | resources that can regenerate |
| pollutant | harmful material that can enter the biosphere throught the land, air, or water |
| biodiversity | biological diversity; the sum of the total variety of organsims in the bioshere |
| biological magnifications | increasong consentration of a harmful substance in organsims at higher trophic levels in a food chain or food web |
