Ecology Vocab WB Flashcards
Ecosystem
A biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
Biotic Factor
A thing in an environment that is living. Like a zebra.
Abiotic Factor
Something in an environment that is not living. Like the temperature or rainfall.
Organism
An animal, a plant. Something that is living.
Species
A group of living organisms that are similar to each other and can interbreed.
Population
A group of the same animal or plant that live in a specific area. EX: Herd of deer
Community
Groups of different organisms interacting in a common location.
Habitat
A place where an organism lives.
Natural Selection
A process in which the most fit or best adapted survive to pass down their genes.
Evolution
The change in a species over grand amounts of time.
Producers/Autotrophs
Organisms that produce their own food, and are food for other organisms.
Consumers/Heterotrophs
Consumers consume producers. They cannot make their own food, so they have to consume producers.
Primary Consumer
A consumer in an energy pyramid, that consumes the producer. It is one step above the producer.
Secondary Consumer
It is the step above the primary consumer. The secondary consumer usually consumes the primary consumer. There are fewer secondary consumers than primary consumers.
Tertiary Consumer
This is the highest step in the energy pyramid and is above the secondary consumer. These consumers eat the secondary consumer, and are often at the peak of the food chain. These consumers are the fewest in number and require the most energy.
Herbivores
These are consumers that eat plants. They are typically primary consumers and thus are prey for secondary or even tertiary consumers.
Carnivores
They typically eat only the meat of other consumers and are thus either secondary consumers or tertiary consumers. They consumer other consumers.
Omnivores
They are organisms that consume both plants and animals. They are typically a secondary consumer.
Decomposers
They are organisms, most commonly fungi, that consume the remnants of corpses, or leaf litter.
Food Chain
A feeding hierarchy.
Food web
A feeding hierarchy that shows the interactions between the consumed and those that consume.
Energy Pyramid
Shows the flow of energy through a biome/ecosystem/area. Usually with plants on the bottom and an apex predator on top.
Carbon Cycle
The cycling of carbon through multiple systems. Systems such as photosynthesis and respiration.
Nitrogen Cycle
A continuous series of natural processes by which nitrogen passes from air to soil to organisms and back to air or soil involving principally nitrogen fixation, nitrification, decay, and denitrification.
Ecological Succession
The process by which the structure of a biological community evolves over time.
Primary Succession
An ecological succession that occurs following an opening of uninhabited, barren habitat or that occurs on an environment that is devoid of vegetation and usually lacking topsoil.
Secondary Succession
Is a process started by an event (e.g. forest fire, harvesting, hurricane) that reduces an already established ecosystem (e.g. a forest or a wheat field) to a smaller population of species.
Pioneer Species
Are hardy species which are the first to colonize previously disrupted or damaged ecosystems.
Climax Community
An ecological community in which populations of plants or animals remain stable and exist in balance with each other and their environment.
