Ecology Intro Terms

Abiotic Factors

. a nonliving condition or thing, as climate or habitat, that influences or affects an ecosystem and the organisms in it can determine which species of organisms will survive in a given environment.

Commensalism

A symbiotic relationship between two organisms of different species in which one derives some benefit while the other is unaffected.

Producers

An autotrophic organism that serves as a source of food for other organisms in a food chain.

Decomposers

An organism, often a bacterium or fungus, that feeds on and breaks down dead plant or animal matter, thus making organic nutrients available to the ecosystem.

Biotic Factors

Any living factor in an organism's environment.

Consumers

Consumers are those organisms that eat other things.

Trophic Levels

Each step in a food chain or food web.

Omnivore

Heterotroph that consumes both plants and animals

Herbivore

Heterotroph that eats only plants.

Carnivore

Heterotroph that preys on other heterotrophs.

Biomes

Large group of ecosystems that share the same climate and have similar types of communities.

Food Webs

Model that shows many interconnected food chains and pathways in which energy and matter flow through and ecosystem.

Biospere

Relatively thin layer of Earth and its atmosphere.

Ecology

Scientific study of all the interrelationships between organisms and their environment.

Food Chains

Simplified model that shows a single path for energy flow through an ecosystem.

Niche

The function or position of a species within an ecological community

Biomass

Total mass of living matter at each trophic level

Ecosystems

a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system.

Parasitism

a relationship between two organisms where one benefits, and the other is harmed.

Populations

a summation of all the organisms of the same group or species, which live in a particular geographical area, and have the capability of interbreeding

Habitat

an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by human, a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism.

Carrying Capacity

an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment.

Communities

an interacting group of various species in a common location. For example, a forest of trees and undergrowth plants, inhabited by animals and rooted in soil containing bacteria and fungi, constitutes a biological

Symbiosis

an interaction between two organisms living together in more or less intimate association or even the merging of two dissimilar organisms.

Limiting Factors

environmental conditions that limit the growth, abundance, or distribution of an organism or a population of organisms in an ecosystem.

Energy Pyramid

graphical representation of the trophic levels (nutritional) by which the incoming solar energy is transferred into an ecosystem. The source of energy for living beings on Earth is the Sun.

Biomagnification

increasing concentration of toxic substances such as DDT in organisms as trophic levels increase in food chains or food webs.

Organism

is an individual living thing, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protest, or fungus. An organism has a body made up of smaller parts that work together. There are many different organisms.

Species

organisms that produce fertile offspring but this is sometimes limited as some organisms do not always reproduce sexually, and some hybrids are fertile.

Mutualism

the way two organisms of different species exist in a relationship in which each individual benefits from the activity of the other. Similar interactions within a species are known as co-operation.