vocab - ecosystem dynamics Flashcards
What is an ecosystem?
An environment containing organisms interacting with each other and non-living parts of the environment.
What does biotic refer to?
Living factors in an ecosystem.
What does abiotic refer to?
Non-living factors in an ecosystem including physical and chemical factors.
What is a habitat?
Area an organism lives at a particular time.
What is a niche?
The part of an ecosystem that an organism occupies, including all resources it uses. No two species can occupy the same niche.
What defines a species?
A group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring.
What is a population?
A group of organisms of the same species living in the same area at a certain time.
What is a community?
Group of different species living together and interacting with each other in a habitat.
What is the biosphere?
Narrow belt around Earth containing all Earth’s living organisms.
What does buoyancy refer to?
The amount of support provided by the medium; the tendency of a body to float or to rise when submerged in a fluid.
What is distribution in ecology?
The area where an organism is found; the pattern may be random, uniform, or clumped.
What is abundance?
Refers to the numbers of an organism in a particular area, expressed as rare, scarce, common, plentiful, or abundant.
What is a transect?
A line along which organisms are counted at regular intervals to show how species diversity changes across an area.
What is a quadrat?
A defined area used in an ecological study to measure the abundance or number of organisms in a population.
What is capture-mark-recapture?
Estimating species abundance as a sampling technique to estimate the size of animal populations.
What is photosynthesis?
A system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms convert light energy into chemical energy necessary for metabolism.
What is competition in ecology?
The struggle between organisms for the same resource, which can be interspecific or intraspecific.
E.g. Food, shelter, and mates.
What is symbiosis?
A type of interaction where two different species live together in close association, benefiting at least one of them.
What are the three types of symbiosis?
Mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
What is allelopathy?
A biological process in which plants can prevent other plants from growing near them.
What is parasitism?
A relationship between two living species where one organism benefits at the expense of the other.
What is mutualism?
An association between organisms of two different species in which each benefits.
What is commensalism?
A symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits and the other is neither harmed nor benefited.
What is a decomposer?
An organism that breaks down dead plants and animals.
What is a producer?
An autotroph.
What is a consumer?
A heterotrophic organism that consumes others.
What is a heterotroph?
‘Hetero’ = different, ‘Troph’ = feeding. An organism that cannot produce its own food and has to eat another organism for food.
What is an autotroph?
‘Auto’ = self, ‘Troph’ = feeding. An organism that produces its own nutrients through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis.
What is a carnivore?
An organism that eats meat.
What is an omnivore?
An organism that eats plants and meat.
What is a herbivore?
An organism that eats plants.
What is a scavenger?
An animal that feeds on dead organisms.
What is a food chain?
Sequences of organisms from producers to consumers along which energy flows in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
Shows a number of interacting food chains in an ecosystem.
What are trophic interactions?
Feeding relationships between organisms.
What is biodiversity?
The number, relative abundance, and genetic diversity in an area; the variety of all living things and their interactions.
