Glossary Flashcards
Define: community
All organisms that live and interact in an ecosystem
Define: ecosystem
Community of organisms and their environment
Define: biome
A large geographical region comprising of ecosystems
Define: population
A group of individuals of the same species.
Define: Abiotic
Non living parts of an ecosystem
Define: Biotic
Living parts or an ecosystem
Define: Competition
When organisms use the same limited resources
Define: Predation
When a predator eats it’s prey
Define: Mutualism
Where 2 organisms have a relationship in which they are both benefitted
Eg: you know who.
Define: Parasitism
Where 2 organisms have a relationship in which the parasite benefits but the host suffers.
Define: Commensalism
Where 2 organisms have a relationship where one organism is benefitted but the other organism neither gains nor loses anything.
Eg: My whole life
Define: Habitat
A place where an organism lives
Eg: a pond
Define: Environment
All factors that affect an individual’s survival
Define: Adaptation
An inherited feature of an organism that enables it to survive and reproduce in an environment.
Define: Structural Adaptation
Physical features which allow organisms to survive more effectively
Eg: peripheral vision
Define: Functional Adaptation
A biological features that allows organisms to survive more effectively
Eg: reproduction rate (
Define: Behavioural Adaptation
Behaviours that allow organisms to survive more effectively
Eg: Freezing, burrowing
Define: Trophic Structure
A hierarchy of feeding relations which determine the pathways for energy flow and nutrient recycling
Define: Producers
Plants and other (things) which occupy the first trophic level, and they usually derive their energy from the sun
Define: Consumers
Organisms that derive their energy from producers or other consumers, but they are never producers
Define: Food chain
The sequence of organisms, each of which is a source of food for the next.
Define: Food Web
The different food chains in an ecosystem that form complex webs of feeding interactions.
Define: Ecology
Study of biotic and abiotic interrelationships.
Define: Decomposer
Consumers that gain their nutrients from the breakdown of dead organic matter. They include fungi and soil bacteria.
