Ecology

Question 1

Ecosystem

Answer 1

a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

Question 2

Biotic factor

Answer 2

any living component that affects the population of another organism, or the environment.

Question 3

Abiotic factor

Answer 3

a nonliving condition or thing, as climate or habitat, that influences or affects an ecosystem and the organisms in it.

Question 4

Organism

Answer 4

an individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form.

Question 5

Species

Answer 5

a set of organisms adapted to a particular set of resources, called a niche, in the environment.

Question 6

Population

Answer 6

a particular section, group, or type of people or animals living in an area or country.

Question 7

Community

Answer 7

the study of the interactions between species

Question 8

Habitat

Answer 8

an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism.

Question 9

Natural selection

Answer 9

strictly ecological processes that operate on a species’ inherited traits without reference to mating or secondary sex characteristics.

Question 10

Evolution

Answer 10

it examines how interactions between and within species evolve and change.

Question 11

Autotrophs

Answer 11

an organism that serves as a primary producer in a food chain.

Question 12

Heterotrophs

Answer 12

they are unable to produce organic substances from inorganic ones.

Question 13

Primary consumers

Answer 13

herbivores, feeding on plants.

Question 14

Secondary consumers

Answer 14

on the other hand, are carnivores, and prey on other animals.

Question 15

Tertiary consumers

Answer 15

a carnivore at the topmost level in a food chain that feeds on other carnivores; an animal that feeds only on secondary consumers.

Question 16

Herbivores

Answer 16

any organism that eats only plants

Question 17

Carnivores

Answer 17

any organism that eats only meat or any other living organism

Question 18

Omnivores

Answer 18

a kind of animal that eats either other animals or plants.

Question 19

Decomposers

Answer 19

An organism whose ecological function involves the recycling of nutrients by performing the natural process of decomposition as it feeds on decaying organisms.

Question 20

Food chain

Answer 20

A feeding hierarchy in which organisms in an ecosystem are grouped into trophic (nutritional) levels and are shown in a succession to represent the flow of food energy and the feeding relationships between them.

Question 21

Food web

Answer 21

A graphical model showing the interconnecting food chains in an ecological community.

Question 22

Energy pyramid

Answer 22

a graphical model of energy flow in a community.

Question 23

Carbon cycle

Answer 23

The combined processes, including photosynthesis, decomposition, and respiration, by which carbon as a component of various compounds cycles between its major reservoirs—the atmosphere, oceans, and living organisms.

Question 24

Nitrogen cycle

Answer 24

a continuous series of natural processes by which nitrogen passes successively from air to soil to organisms and back to air or soil involving principally nitrogen fixation, nitrification, decay, and denitrification.

Question 25

Ecological succession

Answer 25

the process by which the structure of a biological community evolves over time.

Question 26

Primary succession

Answer 26

occurring in an environment in which new substrate devoid of vegetation and other organisms usually lacking soil, such as a lava flow or area left from retreated glacier, is deposited.

Question 27

Secondary succession

Answer 27

the series of community changes which take place on a previously colonized, but disturbed or damaged habitat.

Question 28

Pioneer species

Answer 28

are hardy species which are the first to colonize previously disrupted or damaged ecosystems, beginning a chain of ecological succession that ultimately leads to a more biodiverse steady-state ecosystem.

Question 29

Climax community

Answer 29

populations of plants or animals remain stable and exist in balance with each other and their environment

Question 30

Ecosystem

Answer 30

a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.