| A | B |
|---|
| ecology | the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment |
| biotic | living factors in the environment |
| abiotic | non-livng factors in the environment |
| individual organism | one living member of a group |
| population | a group of individuals of the same species that live together in the same area at the same time |
| community | all of the populations of different species that live and interact in an area |
| ecosystem | a community of organisms and their nonliving(abiotic)environment |
| limiting factors | any one of a number of needed resources(biotic or abiotic)needed to maintain populations in any environment |
| census | counting every single individual in a population |
| sampling technique | a way of estimating a large population by sampling a smaller area |
| biosphere | the part of the Earth where life exists |
| producer | organisms that use sunlight directly to make their own food |
| carnivore | a consumer that eats animals |
| omnivore | a consumer that eats a variety of organisms (plants&/or animals) |
| decomposer | organisms that break down the remains of dead organisms to get energy |
| scavenger | an animal that feeds on the bodies of dead animals |
| habitat | the environment where an organism lives |
| niche | an organism's way of life and its relationships with its abiotic and biotic environment |
| herbivore | a consumer that eats only plants |
| food chain | a diagram that represents how the energy in the food molecules flows from one organism to the next |
| food web | a complex diagram representing the many energy pathways in a real ecosystem |
| energy pyramid | a diagram shaped like a triangle showing the loss of energy at each level of the food chain |
| carrying capacity | the largest population that a given environment can support over a long period of time |
| prey | an organism that is eaten by another organism |
| predator | an organism that eats other organisms |
| symbiosis | a close,long-term association between two or more species |
| mutaulism | a type of symbiotic relationship in which Both organisms BENEFIT |
| commensalism | a type of symbiotic relationship in which One organism BENEFITS and the other is UNAFFECTED |
| parasitism | a type of symbiotic association in which ONE organism BENEFITS while the other is HARMED |
| coevolution | long-term changes that take place in two species because of their close interactions with one another |
