| Term | Definition |
|---|
| ecology | scientific study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment |
| biosphere | It contains the combined portions of the planet in which all of life exists, including land, water, and air or atmosphere. |
| species | group of similar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| populations | groups of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the same area |
| communities | assemblages of different populations that live together in a defined area |
| ecosystem | collection of all the organisms that live in a particular place, together with their nonliving environment |
| biome | group of ecosystems that have the same climate and dominant communities |
| autotroph | organism that makes its own food |
| producer | an organism that can make its own food |
| photosynthesis | process by which plants and some other organisms use light energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and high-energy carbohydrates such as sugars and starches |
| chemosynthesis | when organisms use chemical energy to produce carbohydrates |
| heterotrophs | consumers, they rely on other organisms for their energy and food supply |
| consumers | an organism that obtains energy and nutrients by feeding on other organisms or their remains. |
| herbivores | plant eaters |
| carnivores | meat eaters |
| omnivores | eat plants and animals |
| detritivores | feed on plant and animal remains and other dead matter |
| decomposers | fungi and bacteria that break complex organic material into smaller molecules |
| food chain | a series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten |
| food web | network of complex interactions formed by the feeding relationships among the various organisms in an ecosystem |
| tropic level | each step in a food chain or food web |
| ecological pyramid | a diagram that shows the relative amounts of energy or matter contained within each trophic level in a food chain or food web |
| biomass | total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level |
| biogeochemical cycles | process in which elements, chemical compounds, and other forms of matter are passed from one organism to another and from one part of the biosphere to another |
| evaporation | the process by which water changes from liquid form to an atmospheric gas |
| transpiration | loss of water from a plant through its leaves |
| nutrients | all the chemical substances that an organism needs to sustain life |
| nitrogen fixation | process of converting nitrogen gas into ammonia |
| denitrification | changing nitrates into nitrogen gas |
| primary productivity | rate at which organic matter is created by producers in an ecosystem |
| limiting nutrient | single nutrient that either is scarce or cycles very slowly, limiting the growth of organisms in an ecosystem |
| algal bloom | an immediate increase in the amount of algae and other producers that results from a large input of a limiting nutrient |
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