Glossary

Question 0

Define: community

Answer 0

All organisms that live and interact in an ecosystem

Question 1

Define: ecosystem

Answer 1

Community of organisms and their environment

Question 2

Define: biome

Answer 2

A large geographical region comprising of ecosystems

Question 3

Define: population

Answer 3

A group of individuals of the same species.

Question 4

Define: Abiotic

Answer 4

Non living parts of an ecosystem

Question 5

Define: Biotic

Answer 5

Living parts or an ecosystem

Question 6

Define: Competition

Answer 6

When organisms use the same limited resources

Question 7

Define: Predation

Answer 7

When a predator eats it’s prey

Question 8

Define: Mutualism

Answer 8

Where 2 organisms have a relationship in which they are both benefitted
Eg: you know who.

Question 9

Define: Parasitism

Answer 9

Where 2 organisms have a relationship in which the parasite benefits but the host suffers.

Question 10

Define: Commensalism

Answer 10

Where 2 organisms have a relationship where one organism is benefitted but the other organism neither gains nor loses anything.

Eg: My whole life

Question 11

Define: Habitat

Answer 11

A place where an organism lives

Eg: a pond

Question 12

Define: Environment

Answer 12

All factors that affect an individual’s survival

Question 13

Define: Adaptation

Answer 13

An inherited feature of an organism that enables it to survive and reproduce in an environment.

Question 14

Define: Structural Adaptation

Answer 14

Physical features which allow organisms to survive more effectively
Eg: peripheral vision

Question 15

Define: Functional Adaptation

Answer 15

A biological features that allows organisms to survive more effectively
Eg: reproduction rate (

Question 16

Define: Behavioural Adaptation

Answer 16

Behaviours that allow organisms to survive more effectively

Eg: Freezing, burrowing

Question 17

Define: Trophic Structure

Answer 17

A hierarchy of feeding relations which determine the pathways for energy flow and nutrient recycling

Question 18

Define: Producers

Answer 18

Plants and other (things) which occupy the first trophic level, and they usually derive their energy from the sun

Question 19

Define: Consumers

Answer 19

Organisms that derive their energy from producers or other consumers, but they are never producers

Question 20

Define: Food chain

Answer 20

The sequence of organisms, each of which is a source of food for the next.

Question 21

Define: Food Web

Answer 21

The different food chains in an ecosystem that form complex webs of feeding interactions.

Question 22

Define: Ecology

Answer 22

Study of biotic and abiotic interrelationships.

Question 23

Define: Decomposer

Answer 23

Consumers that gain their nutrients from the breakdown of dead organic matter. They include fungi and soil bacteria.

Question 24

Define: Photosynthetic Productivity

Answer 24

The amount of food generated per unit of time through photosynthesis.

Question 25

Define: parasite, host

Answer 25

An organism that benefits from the host but the host suffers.
For host, vice versa.

Question 26

Define: symbiotic

Answer 26

An interdependent relationship.

Question 27

Define: Quadrat

Answer 27

A one-square-metre sized pipe-square used to make samples of an environment.

Question 28

Define: chlorophyll

Answer 28

A green pigment that absorbs light into chemical energy via photosynthesis.

Question 29

Define: Chloroplast

Answer 29

Organelles in green plant cells where photosynthesis takes place.

Question 30

Define: precipitation

Answer 30

Rain, snow, sleet or hail that falls to the ground.

Question 31

Define: pathogens

Answer 31

Bacteria that causes disease.

Question 32

Define: infiltration

Answer 32

Movement of water into soil

Question 33

Define: percolation

Answer 33

Downward flow of water

Question 34

Define: aquifers

Answer 34

Groundwater storage areas

Question 35

Define: biosphere

Answer 35

The part of earths crust, waters and atmosphere that supports life.

Question 36

Define: trophic level

Answer 36

The position an organism sits on a food chain that determines who eats what.

Question 37

Define: species

Answer 37

Particular type of organism sharing common characteristics

Question 38

Define: succession

Answer 38

A natural change in an ecosystem, one community creates the conditions for the next.