ecology terms
Terms
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- environment
- an organisms surroundings
- invertebrate
- animal without a backbone
- biodiversity
- the number and variety of organisms in an area
- marine
- sea
- aquatic
- water environments
- decomposer
- organisms that eat others
- biome
- a group of ecosystems with the same climate and communities
- herbivore
- animal that eats only plants
- organism
- any living thing
- climax forest
- final community of plants and animals in a forest
- asexual reproduction
- reproduction with only one parent
- photosynthesis
- process by which plants make their own food
- grassland
- an ecosystem made up of large, flat areas of land that are covered with grass
- water cycle
- the movement of water from place to place and from one form to another
- geosphere
- the crust or land
- ecology
- study of the interactions between abiotic and biotic factors in an envrionment
- terrestrial
- land
- succession
- (ecology) the gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established
- mutualism
- symbiosis that benefits both organisms
- carbon cycle
- process in which the producer uses carbon from the carbon dioxide to produce other carbon containing molecules
- co evolution
- when two species evolve to benefit each other over time
- atmosphere
- air
- evaporation
- the process by which water changes from liquid from to an atmospheric gas
- producers
- organisms that make their own food
- vertebrate
- animal with a backbone
- food web
- a diagram showing all the feeding patterns in an ecosystem
- secondary succession
- the series of changes that occur after a disturbance of an existing ecosystem like a fire
- carrying capacity
- the largest population an environment can support
- pioneer plants
- first plants in new soil
- community
- all the populations in an ecosystem
- energy pyramid
- simple diagram that shows how energy in food webs flows from one organism to another
- omnivore
- animal that eats plants and animals
- scavenger
- any animal that feeds on refuse and other decaying organic matter
- abiotic
- nonliving parts of the environment
- niche
- the home of an organism within an ecosystem
- heterotroph
- organisms that eat others (also called consumers)
- commensalism
- symbiosis when one organism benefits and the other does not
- aquatic
- water
- host
- an organism from which a parasite takes its food
- nitrogen cycle
- the circulation of nitrogen between the atmosphere and the plants and animals in an ecosystem
- food chain
- a pathway of energy transfer from one organism to another
- ecosystem
- all the biotic and abiotic factors in an environment
- precipitation
- rain, snow, or sleet
- desert
- an arid ecosystem with little or no rainfall or vegetation
- population
- one type of organism in an ecosystem
- condensation
- water vapor to liquid water in clouds
- habitat
- the type of environment in which an organism or group normally lives
- carnivore
- animal that only eats meat
- consumer
- organism that eat others
- biosphere
- the part of the Earth where all life exists
- parasite
- an organism that lives in or on a host
- biotic
- living parts of the environment