Chapter 4 Vocab
Terms
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- territoriality
- an intense form of intraspecific competition in which organisms define an area surrounding their home site or nesting site and defend it, primarily against other members of their own species
- tolerance limits
- chemical or physical factors taht limit the existence, growth, abundance, or distribution of an organism
- coevolution
- species exert selective pressure on each other and gradually evolve new features or behaviors as a result of those pressures
- habitat
- an individual's home
- parasites
- feed off of a host
- disclimax communities
- a community subject to periodic disruptions, usually by fire, that prevent it from reaching a climax stage
- ecotones
- a boundary between two types of ecological communities
- edge effects
- change in species composition, physical conditions, or other ecological factors at the boundary between two ecosystems
- primary succession
- succession in area that no biotic community previously existed
- commensalism
- symbiotic relationship where one member benefits and other isn't affected
- natural selection
- the strongest survives
- climax community
- stable long lasting community reached in a successional series
- predator
- organism that feeds on other organisms
- fire climax cummunities
- maintained with periodic fires
- keystone species
- a species whose impacts on its community or ecosystem are much larger and more influential that would be expected from mere abundance
- pioneer species
- in primary succession this is the lichen, plants, and microbes that first colonize the area
- abundance
- a lot of
- Mullerian mimicry
- 2 harmful species evolve to look alike
- complexity
- the number of species at each trophic level and the number of trophic levels in a community
- evolution
- theory that explains how random changes in genetic material and competition for scarce resources cause species to change gradually
- interspecific competition
- competition between 2 species
- Batesian mimicry
- harmless species look like harmful species to keep predators away
- resource partitioning
- sharing resources and reducing competition
- pathogens
- organism that produces a disease
- plankton
- microscopic water organisms
- ecological development
- a gradual process of environmental modification by organisms
- intraspecific competition
- competition within a species
- primary productivity
- synthesis of organic materials by green plants using energy captured by photosynthesis
- symbiosis
- the intimate living together of members of two different species
- ecological niche
- role of a species in the environment
- equilibrium communities
- a community subject to periodic disruptions, usually by fire, that prevent it from reaching a climax stage
- mutualism
- 2 organisms benefit from working with each other
- environmental indicators
- organisms or physical factors that serve as a gauge for environmental changes
- diversity
- the number of species in a community
- secondary succession
- succession on a site that life previously existed