Ecology Flashcards
The position of a species within an ecosystem
Niche
Capture energy from the sun or from chemicals and store it in the bonds of sugars making energy available to the rest of the community.
Primary Producers
Process by which primary producers use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugars releasing oxygen along the way
Photosynthesis/Chemosynthesis
Process by which organisms use oxygen to release the chemical energy from sugars such as glucose, releasing carbon dioxide and water as a byproduct.
Cellular Respiration
Organism that consumes producers
Herbivores
Organisms that rely on other organisms for energy and nutrients are called heterotrophs or…
Consumers
secondary and tertiary consumers kill and eat other animals
Carnivores
Animals that eat both plant and animal food
Omnivores
Consume detritus nonliving organic matter
Detritivores
Break down nonliving matter into simpler parts that can be taken up and reused by primary producers
Decomposers
is it’s rank in a feeding hierarchy
trophic level (Pyramid of energy)
The total amount of living tissue a trophic level contains
Biomass
Linear series of feeding relationship
Food chain
Visual map of feeding relationship and energy flow
Food web
A species that has strong or wide-reaching impact on a community
Keyston species
When a comunity experiences a somewhat predictable series of changes over time
Succesion
when a disturbance is so severe that no vegetation or soil life remains
Primary succession
species that colonize the newly exposed land
Pioneer species
Begins with a disturbance, the soil from the previous ecosystem remains
secondary succession
A stable community that completes the succession process
Climax Comunities
Nonnative organism that spreads widely in a community
Invasive species
Describes the average conditions including temperature and precipitation over long periods in a given area
Climate
day to day conditions in earth’s atmosphere like sunny and humid or cold and snowy
Weather
climate diagrams to describe the conditions in a biome
Climatographs
Group of ecosystems that share similar abiotic and biotic conditions
Biome
Is the organic matter or biomass that remains after cellular respiration
Net primary production
When animals slow their activity for the hot, dry summer months
Estivation
sleeplike state that an animal enters for most of the winter
Hibernation
froze surface soils
Permafrost
When trees lose their leaves and stop photosynthesis during part of the year
Deciduous
Describes the number of individual organisms present in a given population at a given time
Population Size
Describes the number of individuals within a population per unit area
Population Density
Describes how organisms are arranged within an area (random, uniform, clumped)
Population Distribution/ Dispersion
Describes the relative number of organisms of
each age within a population
Age Structure
Proportion of males to females
Sex ratio
