FINAL VOCABULARY Flashcards
The interconnected feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
Food web
A central cavity with a single opening in the body that functions in both the digestion and distribution of nutrients.
Gastrovascular cavity
A group of cells living together where cells specialize to carry out particular life functions. The coordinated behavior/function of all cells is needed to make up a complete living organism.
Multicellular
All of the organisms that inhabit a particular area; an assemblage of populations of different species living close enough together for potential interaction.
Community
The amount of light energy converted to chemical energy by the autotrophs in an ecosystem during a given time period.
Primary production
A group of animal phyla identified as a clade by molecular evidence. Includes animals that have lophophores or trochophore larvae.
Lophotrochozoan
A species that is not necessarily abundant in a community yet exerts strong control on community structure by the nature of its ecological role or niche.
Keystone species
The most diverse animal phylum, containing ecdysozoan animals with a segmented body and an exoskeleton.
Arthropoda
The evolution of similar features in independent evolutionary lineages.
Convergent evolution
An organism that is capable of both photosynthesis and heterotrophy.
Mixotroph
The outermost of the three primary germ layers in animal embryos; gives rise to the outer covering and in some phyla, the nervous system, inner ear, and lens of the eye.
Ectoderm
Animals that at some point during their development have a notochord; a dorsal hollow nerve cord; pharyngeal slits or clefts; and a muscular, post-anal tail.
Chordates
A process in which a unicellular organism engulfs another cell, which lives within the host cell and ultimately becomes an organelle in the host cell.
Endosymbiosis
An evolutionary novelty that is unique to a particular clade.
Shared derived character
An animal phylum composed of sessile, suspension feeders, that lack true tissues. They are informal referred to as sponges.
Porifera
A species, often introduced by humans, that takes hold outside its native range.
Invasive species
The percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next higher trophic level.
10 Percent
A group of cells living together, where all cells can carry out all necessary functions of life.
Colonial
Group of animal phyla identified as a clade by molecular evidence. Many animals in this group are molting animals.
Ecdysozoan
A symbiotic relationship in which both participants benefit.
Mutualism
A reproductive barrier that impedes mating between species or hinders fertilization if interspecific mating is attempted.
Prezygotic barriers
A vertebrate clade whose members have limbs with digits. Include mammals, amphibians, and birds and other reptiles.
Tetrapoda
Member of the terapod class. Includes salamanders, frogs, and caecilians.
Amphibian
The fusion of the cytoplasm of cells from two individual fungi.
Plasmogamy
Natural selection in which individuals on both extremes of a phenotypic range survive or reproduce more successfully than do individuals with intermediate phenotypes.
Disruptive selection
In a specified group of organisms, a taxon whose evolutionary lineage diverged early in the history of the group.
Basal taxon
The concept that moderate levels of disturbance can foster greater species diversity than low or high levels of disturbance.
Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis
The division of environmental resources by coexisting species such that the niche of each species differs by one or more significant factors from the niches of all coexisting species.
Resource partitioning
In organisms that have alternation of generations, the multicellular diploid form that results from the union of gametes.
Sporophyte
A developmental mode distinguished by spiral, determinate cleavage and the development of the mouth from the blastopore.
Protostome
A terrestrial biome that exists at midlatitude regions and is dominated by grasses and forbs.
Temperate grassland
A solid-bodied animal lacking a cavity between the gut and outer body wall.
Acoelomate
Characteristics that is similar because of convergent evolution, not homology.
Analogous
A life cycle characteristic of Fungi and some protists. Mitosis occurs during the haploid stage of the life cycle and meiosis occurs immediately following formation of the zygote (zygotic meiosis).
Haplontic
An adaptation of some terrestrial plants consisting of an embryo packaged along with a store of food within a protective coat
Seed
A group of taxa that consists of a common ancestor and all of its descendants.
Monophyletic
A clade of tetrapods whose development takes place in an egg with specialized membranes that protect and keep the developing embryo hydrated.
Amniote
A consumer that derives its energy and nutrients from nonliving organic material such as corpses, fallen plant material, and the wastes of living organisms; a decomposer.
Detritivore
An informal term applied to any eukaryote that is not a plant, animal, or fungus.
Protist
A hard skeleton buried within the soft tissues of an animal.
Endoskeleton
A life cycle characteristic of animals and some protists. Mitosis occurs during the diploid stage of the life cycle and meiosis directly produces haploid gametes (gametic meiosis).
Diplontic
Selection in which there is direct competition among individuals of one sex for mates of the opposite sex.
Intrasexual selection
The contribution an individual makes to the gene pool of the next generation relative to the other individuals in the population.
Relative fitness
A branching diagram that represents a hypothesis about the evolutionary history of a group of organisms.
Phylogenetic Tree
The concept that when populations of two similar species compete for the same limited resources, one population will use the resources more efficiently and have a reproductive advantage that will eventually lead to the elimination of the other population.
Competitive exclusion
A life cycle characteristic of plants and some protists. Mitosis occurs during both the haploid and diploid stages of the life cycle. Meiosis produces haploid spores (sporic meiosis). Gametes are produced through cellular differentiation following mitosis.
Alternation of generations
A group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area and interbreed, producing fertile offspring.
Population
Having developed from three germ layers.
Triploblastic
An animal with a worm shaped body plan characterized by a coelom, segmentation, and lack of a cuticle.
Annelid
An organism that obtains organic food molecules without eating other organisms or substances derived from other organisms. Use energy from the sun or from oxidation of inorganic substances to make organic molecules from inorganic ones.
Autotroph
Any of the world’s major ecosystem types, often classified according to dominant vegetation, the physical environment, and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment.
Biome
An element that must be added for production to increase in a particular area.
Limiting nutrient
A process by which nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen, become highly concentrated in a body of water, leading to increased growth of organisms such as algae or cyanobacteria.
Eutrophication
All the organisms in a given area as well as the abiotic factors with which they interact; one or more communities and the physical environment around them.
Ecosystem
Body symmetry in which a central longitudinal plane divides the body into two equal but opposite halves.
Bilateral symmetry
Vascular plant tissue consisting of living cells arranged into elongated tubes that transport sugar and other organic nutrients throughout the plant.
Phloem
A development mode in animals distinguished by radial, indeterminate cleavage and the development of an anus from the blastopore.
Deuterostome
Population growth that levels off as population size approaches carrying capacity.
Logistic population growth
A longitudinal, flexible rod made of tightly packed mesodermal cells that runs along the anterior-posterior axis of a chordate in the dorsal part of the body.
Notochord
A type of succession that occurs where an existing community has been cleared by some disturbance that leaves the soil or substrate intact.
Secondary succession
