| A | B |
|---|
| Ecology | the study of the relationship between organisms and between organisms and their physical environment |
| Population | all the members of a species living in a given location |
| Community | all the interacting populations in a given area |
| Ecosystem | all the members of a community plus the physical environment in which they live |
| Biosphere | the portion of the earth in which living things exist |
| Abiotic | the parts of an ecosystem which include nonliving factors |
| Biotic | the parts of an ecosystem which include living factors |
| Producers | autotrophs that primarily use sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce their own foods |
| Heterotrophs | cannot make their own food and must get their food from other organisms |
| Herbivores | animals that feed on plants only |
| Carnivores | animals that consume other animals |
| Predators | kill and consume their prey |
| Scavengers | feed on the remains of animals they have not killed |
| Omnivores | animals that consume both plants and animals |
| Food Chains and Food Webs | Representations of the pathways of chemical energy from food through the organisms of an ecosystem |
| Food Chain | The transfer of energy from green plants through a series of organisms with repeated stages of eating and being eaten |
| Food Web | A variety of food chain in a community are interconnected, forming this |
| Pyramid of Energy | The relative amounts of energy available at each feeding level in a community |
| Pyramid of Biomass | The relative amounts of living matter at each feeding level in a community |
| Succession | The orderly process by which one biotic community is replaced by another |
