Summer Assignments

English	Photos
Biodiversity	Variety of all forms of life, from genes to species, through to the broad scale of ecosystems.
Biomass	The amount of living matter in a given habitat, expressed either as the weight of organisms per unit area or as the volume of organisms per unit volume of habitat.
Carnivore	Animal that eats flesh.
Cellular Respiration	The oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
Climax Community	A stable mature community in a successive series which has reached equilibrium after having evolved through stages and adapted to its environment
Commensalism	A type of relationship between two species of a plant, animal, fungus, etc., in which one lives with, on, or in another without damage to either.
Community	A locality inhabited by such a group.
Competition	When two individual of same or different species fight for food and shelter
Decomposer	An organism, usually a bacterium or fungus, that breaks down the cells of dead plants and animals into simpler substances.
Detritivore	An organism that uses organic waste as a food source, as certain insects.
Ecology	The branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.
Ecosystem	A system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment.
Habitat	The natural environment of an organism; place that is natural for the life and growth of an organism: a tropical habitat.
Herbivore	Organisms that feed on plants.
Indicator Species	Organism whose presence, absence or abundance reflects a specific environmental condition.
Invasive Species	Any species, including its seeds, eggs, spores, or other biological material capable of propagating that species, that is not native to that ecosystem; and whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.
Keystone Species	A species whose presence and role within an ecosystem has a disproportionate effect on other organisms within the system. A keystone species is often a dominant predator whose removal allows a prey population to explode and often decreases overall diversity. Other kinds of keystone species are those, such as coral or beavers, that significantly alter the habitat around them and thus affect large numbers of other organisms. Compare indicator species.
Mutualism	a relationship between two species of organisms in which both benefit from the association.
Native species	A Species, species that normally lives and thrives in a particular ecosystem. This can include any species that developed with the surrounding habitat, and can be assisted by or affected by a new species.
niche	The position or function of an organism in a community of plants and animals.
Nonnative species	When organisms live in a region where they did not first appear
Organism	Any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.
Photosynthesis	The synthesis of complex organic materials, especially carbohydrates, from carbon dioxide, water, and inorganic salts, using sunlight as the source of energy and with the aid of chlorophyll and associated pigments.
Pioneer community	Is a plant species dominating a community in the first stage of succession.
Population	The assemblage of a specific type of organism living in a given area.
Predation	A relation between animals in which one organism captures and feeds on others.
Primary consumer	An herbivore; an organism in the trophic level of an ecosystem that eats plants or algae
Primary Succession	an ecological succession that begins in a an area where no biotic community previously existed
Producer	an organism that makes its own food
secondary consumer	An organism that eats primary consumers
secondary succession	succession on a site where an existing community has been disrupted
species	a group of organisms so similar to one another that they can breed and produce fertile offspring
species diversity	Number of different species in the biosphere
succession	(ecology) 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
tertiary consumer	An organism that eats secondary consumers
Quaternary consumer	An organism that eats tertiary consumers