| A | B |
|---|
| Ecology | The study of the interactions of living organisms with one another |
| Habitat | The place where a particular population of species lives |
| Community | The many different species that live together in a habitat |
| ecosystem | A community and all the physical aspects of its habitat |
| Species diversity | diverse species |
| Diversity | The number of species living within the ecosystem |
| Succession | The regular progression of species replacement |
| primary succession | succession that occurs where nothing has grown before |
| secondary succession | succession that occurs where there has been previous growth |
| primary productivity | the amount of organic material that the photosynthetic organisms of an ecosystem produce |
| producers | Organisms that capture energy from the sun |
| consumers | obtain energy by consuming plants or other organisms |
| trophic level | the level assigned to an organism by how it gets its energy |
| herbivores | animals that eat plants |
| carnivores | animals that survive off of the flesh of other organisms |
| omnivores | organisms that consume both plants and other organisms |
| detritivores | fungal and bacterial decomposers |
| decomposers | organisms that decay other dead organisms |
| food chain | a path of energy through trophic levels of an ecosystem |
| food web | an interconnected path of energy |
| biomass | the dry weight of an organisms tissue |
| nitrogen fixation | combining nitrogen and hydrogen to form ammonia |
| Assimalation | absorbtion and incorporation of nitrogen into plant and animal compounds |
| Ammonification | the production of ammonia by bacteria during the decay of nitrogen-containing organic matter |
| Nitrification | production of nitrate from ammonia |
| Denitrification | conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gas |
