Ecology Vocab
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Created by:
amanda_mauldin2 on September 13, 2012
Subjects:
Description:
Ecology Vocab for Honors Bio :)
Copied From:
Set copied from grassoj1
Classes:
Bondurant Middle School Science, Honors Bio - Mauldin
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50 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Food Web | A diagram showing all of the connected food chains in an ecosystem |
| Biodiversity | Distribution or quantity of species in an area |
| Decomposer | An organism that breaks down dead organisms |
| Energy Pyramid | A diagram that shows how energy decreases as it travels through a food chain |
| Food Chain | A diagram showing how matter and energy pass from one organism to the next in an ecosystem |
| Omnivore | An organism that eats both plants and animals |
| Carnivore | An organism that eats only other animals |
| Herbivore | An organism that eats only autotrophs |
| Competition | When two organisms fight over the same resource |
| Community | All of the different populations of organisms in an area. |
| Biosphere | All of the living space on earth. |
| Ecosystem | Abiotic and biotic things interacting in an area |
| Population | All of the members of the same species in an area. |
| Prey | The organism that is hunted |
| Predator | The organism that hunts others for food. |
| Adaptation | A trait that helps an organism survive. |
| Limiting Factor | The resource that is most scarce and has a large impact on population size |
| Carrying Capacity | The largest population size an ecosystem can hold. |
| Parasitism | A type of relationship where one organism benefits while harming the other organism |
| Commensalism | A type of symbiosis where one species benefits and the other is not harmed. |
| Mutualism | A type of symbiosis where two organisms help each other. |
| Symbiosis | A relationship where two species interact |
| Biotic | Living part of the environment |
| Abiotic | Non living part of the environment |
| Ecology | The study of how living things interact with nature. |
| Nutrients | Chemicals that living things can use to live and grow. |
| Autotroph | Any organism able to make its own food (aka producer) |
| Heterotroph | An organism that has to intake its food (aka consumer) |
| Energy | Used for organisms to do everything it needs to do to live |
| Tertiary Consumer | Third level consumer. Often top of the food chain |
| Primary Consumer | The 1st level consumer. Eats producers |
| Secondary Consumer | Eats 1st level consumers. Often is a predator and a prey |
| Quaternary Consumer | 4th level consumers. Food chains don't always go this far |
| Scavenger | An animal that eats other dead animals. |
| Organism | one individual living thing |
| Biome | environments grouped together by similar climates |
| Succession | the gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established |
| Climax community | a stable, mature community that undergoes little or no change in species over time |
| Pioneer species | first species to populate an area during primary succession |
| Immigration | movement of individuals into an area occupied by an existing population |
| Emigration | movement of individuals out of a population |
| Exponential growth | Growth of a population in an ideal, unlimited environment, represented by a J-shaped curve when population size is plotted over time. |
| Logistic growth | A model describing population growth that levels off as population size approaches carrying capacity |
| Denitrification | process in which fixed nitrogen compounds are converted back into nitrogen gas and returned to the atmosphere |
| Nitrogen fixation | process by which certain bacteria convert nitrogen gas to ammonia |
| Condensation | the process by which molecules of water vapor in the air become liquid water |
| Evaporation | the process by which water changes from liquid form to an atmospheric gas |
| Combustion | the process of burning fuel |
| Trophic level | each step in a food chain or food web |
| Transpiration | the emission of water vapor from the leaves of plants |
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