| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Abiotic | Non-living part of an environment |
| Adaptation | Feature that makes an organism suitable to its environment |
| Biotic | Living parts of an environment |
| Carnivore | A consumer that eats only meat |
| Chlorophyll | Green pigment found in plants |
| Community | Group of living things sharing an environment |
| Consumer | An organism that feeds on others |
| Decomposers | Organisms that absorb their food from bodies or wastes of producers and consumers |
| Detritivore | a consumer that obtains its nutrients from detritus |
| Detritus | Dead matter |
| Ecology | Study of the way living things relate to their environment (living and non-living parts) |
| Ecosystem | Living and non-living parts of a environment |
| Environment | The surroundings of a living thing |
| Food Web | Links showing what is eaten by what in a community |
| Food Chain | a series of organisms showing feeding relationships |
| First-Order Consumer | (also called the primary consumer) – the organism that eats the producer |
| Habitat | Place where each living thing lives |
| Herbivore | A consumer that eats only plants |
| Organism | A living thing |
| Omnivore | an organism which eats both animals and plants |
| Photosynthesis | Process where light energy is made into chemical energy |
| Population | A number of living things of the same type (species) |
| Producer | A living thing that makes its own food (i.e. plants) |
| Respiration | Process where sugar is broken down for energy CO2 and H20 are waste products. |
| Scavenger | an consumer that eats dead animals (e.g. crab) |
| Starch | Complex sugar stored in plants leaves |
| Second-order Consumer | (also called the secondary consumer) – the organism that eats or derives nutrients from the first order consumer |
| Trophic Level | A trophic level is each level in a food chain. Matter and energy are always 'lost' as urine, faeces and heat energy at each trophic level. |
| allelopathy | release of chemicals by one organism to inhibit the growth of another |
| Symbiosis | a relationship in which two organisms of different species 'live together' for a period of time |
| Parasitism | a form of symbiosis in which one organism derives nutrients from the second organism which suffers some harm but is usually not killed |
| mutualism | a form of symbiosis in which both organisms benefit each other |
| distribution | the area or range of locatioins in which a species can be found |
| abundance | the number of individual of a species that occur in a parrticular area |
| Population sample techniques | Using quadrats, transects, Capture-recapture as techniques. |
| Quadrat | Square, rectangular or circular patch of vegetation of any size, used to sample an area of an ecosystem. |
| Transect | a profile view of a section of an ecosytem, where the distribution and abundance of species is studied. |
| Capture-recapture | A method of estimating the size of a population, by capturing some, tagging them, and then recapturing another sample. The proportion of tagged animals in the recapture can be used to estimate the population size |
| Predator | An organism which obtains its food by killing another |
| Prey | Animals captured, killed and consumed by other animals |
| Trophic interaction | Feeding relationships. |
| Biomass pyramid | the biomass of plants eaten is much greater than the biomass it produces, for each level in a food chain, causing a pyramid shape |
| Nitrogen cycle | the circulation of nitrogen; where nitrates in the soil are absorbed by plants which are eaten by animals which die and decay returning to the soil |
| Carbon cycle | the movement of carbon in the atmosphere, living organisms and fossil fuels; where plants take in carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, most organisms give out carbon dioxide through respiration, and combustion returns carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere |
| Phosphorus cycle | the movement of Phosphates in the atmosphere; where phosphate runs off rocks and is absorbed in soil. Plants then dissolve this and herbivores obtain Phosphorus by eating the plants, and the carnivores by eating the herbivores. Phosphorus is excreted as feces and urine from animals and returns in decomposition of animals. |
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