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Definition
| study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment |
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| all the organisms in a given area as well as the abiotic factors with which they interact; one or more communities and the physical environment around them |
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| localized group of individuals of the same species that can interbreed producing fertile offspring |
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| Size, Density and Dispersion |
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| all the organisms that inhabit a particular area; an assemblage of populations of different species living close enough together for potential interaction |
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| nonliving; referring to physical and chemical properties of an environment |
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| pertaining to the living organisms in the environment |
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| any of the world's major ecosystems, often classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment |
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| the entire portion of Earth inhabited by life |
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| tropical grassland biome with scattered individual trees and large herbivores and maintained by occasional fires and drought |
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| scrubland biome of dense, spiny evergreen shrubs found at midlatitudes along coasts where cold ocean currents circulate offshore; characterized by mild, rainy winters and long, hot, dry summers |
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| a biome at the extreme limits of plant growth. at the northernmost limits, it is called arctic tundra and at high altitudes, where plant forms are limited to low shrubby or matlike vegetation, it is called alpine tundra |
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| an ecological relationship between organisms of two different species that live together in direct and intimate contact |
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| symbiotic collective formed by the mutualistic association between a fungus and a photosynthetic alga or cyanobacterium |
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| mutualistic association of plant roots and fungus |
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| plant that nourishes itself but grows on the surface of another plant for support |
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| symbiotic relationship in which both participants benefit |
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| symbiotic relationship in which one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of another, the host, by living either within or on the host |
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| parasite that feeds on the external surface of a host |
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| parasite that lives within a host |
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| bright coloration of animals with effective physical or chemical defenses that acts as a warning to predators |
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| camouflage such that a potential prey is difficult to spot against its background |
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| representation of a theory or process |
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| type of mimicry in which a harmless species looks like a species that is poisonous or otherwise harmful to predators |
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| mutual mimicry by two unpalatable species |
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| an autotroph, usually a photosynthetic organism |
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| an herbivore; an organism that eats plants, phytoplankton or algae |
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| a carnivore that eats herbivores |
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| a carnivore that eats other carnivores |
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| any of the saprobic fungi and prokaryotes that absorb nutrients from nonliving |
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| a consumer that derives its energy and nutrients from nonliving organic material such as corpses, fallen plant material, and wastes of living organisms; a decomposer |
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| the pathway along which food energy is transferred from trophic level to trophic level, beginning with producers |
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| the interconnected feeding relationships in an ecosystem |
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| the amount of light energy converted to chemical energy by autotrophs in an ecosystem during a given time period |
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| Gross Primary Productivity |
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Definition
| total primary production of an ecosystem |
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Definition
| the gross primary production of an ecosystem minus the energy used by the producers for respiration |
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| total mass of organic matter comprising a group of organisms in a particular habitat |
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| amount of chemical energy in consumers food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period |
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| scientific discipline concerned with naming and classifying the diverse forms of life |
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| a named taxonomic unit at any given level of classification |
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| population or group of populations whose members have the potential to interbreed in nature and produce viable, and fertile offspring, but do not produce viable, fertile offspring with members of other such groups |
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| an organism that obtains organic food molecules by eating other organisms or substances derived from them |
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| organisms that obtain organic food molecules without eating other organisms or substances derived from other organisms |
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| an organism that harnesses light energy to drive the synthesis of organic compounds from carbon dioxide |
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| the totality of an organisms chemical reactions, consisting of catabolic and anabolic pathways, which manage the material and energy resources of the cell |
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| any of the various chemical cycles, which involve both biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems |
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| the evaporative loss of water from a plant |
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| natural process by which nitrogen, either from the atmosphere or from decomposed organic matter is converted by soil bacteria to compounds assimilated by plants. |
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| the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia, carried out by prokaryotes some of which have mutualistic relationships |
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| conversion of light energy to chemical energy that is stored in sugars or other organic compounds |
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| study of statistics relating to births and deaths in populations |
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| relative number of individuals of each age in a population |
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| group of individuals of the same age in a population |
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| Density-Dependent Mechanisms |
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Definition
| referring to any characteristic that varies according to an increase in population density |
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| the maximum population size that can be supported by the available resources, symbolized as K |
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| Density-Independent Mechanisms |
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| referring to any characteristic that is not affected by population density |
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| process by which nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen, become highly concentrated in a body of water, leading to increased growth of organisms such as algae or cyanobacteria |
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| the warming of Earth due to the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide and certain other gases, which absorb reflected infrared radiation and reradiate some of it back toward Earth |
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| rain that is more acidic than pH |
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