Ecology Flashcards
Ecosystem
The community of organisms that live in a particular area, along with their nonliving environment.
Producer
An organism that can make its own food.
Consumer
An organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms.
Scavenger
A carnivore that feeds on the bodies of dead or decaying organisms.
Decomposer
An organism that gets energy by breaking down biotic wastes and dead organisms, and returns raw materials to the soil and water.
Food chain
A series of events in an ecosystem in which organisms transfer energy by eating and by being eaten.
Food web
The pattern of overlapping feeding relationships or food chains among the various organisms in an ecosystem.
Energy pyramid
A diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one feeding level to another in a food web.
Heterotrophs
An organism that cannot make its own food and gets food by consuming other living things.
Autotroph
An organism that is able to capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and use it to produce its own food.
Trophic level
each of several hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, comprising organisms that share the same function in the food chain and the same nutritional relationship to the primary sources of energy.
Biomass
the total mass of organisms in a given area or volume.
Nitrogen fixation
The process of changing free nitrogen gas into nitrogen compounds that plants can absorb and use.
Abiotic
. physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms
Biotic
relating to or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations.
Primary succession
The process of changing free nitrogen gas into nitrogen compounds that plants can absorb and use.
Secondary seccession
The series of changes that occur in an area where the ecosystem has been disturbed, but where soil and organisms still exist.
Pioneer species
The first species to populate an area during succession.
Weathering
The chemical and physical processes that break down rock and other substances.
Erosion
The process by which water, ice, wind, or gravity moves weathered particles of rock and soil.
Deposition
Process in which sediment is laid down in new locations.
