ecology Flashcards
Ecosystem
a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
Biotic factor
any living component that affects another organism, or shapes the ecosystem.
Abiotic factor
non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems.
Organism
an individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form.
Species
the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring,
Population
In biology, a population is all the organisms of the same group or species, which live in a particular geographical area
Community
a small or large social unit (a group of living things) that has something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity.
Habitat
the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism.
Natural Selection
the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring
Evolution
the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.
Producers/autotrophs
an organism that is able to form nutritional organic substances from simple inorganic substances such as carbon dioxide.
Consumers/heterotrophs
an organism deriving its nutritional requirements from complex organic substances.
Primary Consumer
Next come organisms that eat the autotrophs; these organisms are called herbivores or primary consumers – an example is a rabbit that eats grass. The next link in the chain is animals that eat herbivores
Secondary Consumer
eats the animals that consume the plants. ex. wolf eats a deer
Tertiary consumer
an animal that only feeds off of secondary consumers
Herbivores
an animal that feeds on plants.
Carnivores
an animal that feeds on flesh.
Omnivores
an animal or person that eats food of both plant and animal origin.
Decomposers
an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material.
Food Chain
a hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food.
Food web
a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains.
Energy pyramid
An ecological pyramid is a graphical representation designed to show the biomass or bio productivity at each trophic level in a given ecosystem.
Carbon Cycle
the series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment
Nitrogen Cycle
the series of processes by which nitrogen and its compounds are interconverted in the environment and in living organisms, including nitrogen fixation and decomposition
Ecological succession
Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time.
primary succession
Primary succession is one of two types of biological and ecological succession of plant life, 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.
Pioneer species
Pioneer species 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.
Climax community
a historic term for a biological community of plants, animals, and fungi which, through the process of ecological succession in the development of vegetation in an area over time, have reached a steady state.
