| A | B |
|---|
| The study of the interaction of living things with each other and their physical environment | Ecology |
| The place where an organism lives | Habitat |
| A group of species that live together in a habitat | Community |
| A community of organisms plus all the abiotic factors (soil, water, weather) | Ecosystem |
| Physical aspects of a habitat - nonliving - soil, temperature, water | Abiotic Factors |
| The living things or organisms in a habitat | Biotic Factors |
| The number and variety of organisms in a given area (Number of organisms + Number of different species) | Biodiversity |
| The replacement of one type of community by another at a single location over a period of time | Succession |
| A species that colonizes an uninhabited area and that starts the ecological cycle in which many other species become established | Pioneer Species |
| Succession that begins in an area that previously did not support life | Primary Succession |
| The process by which one community replaces another community that has been partially or totally destroyed | Secondary Succession |
| The rate at which food or glucose is produced by photosynthetic (autotrophic) organisms in an ecosystem | Primary Productivity |
| Autotrophic organisms that capture energy from the sun to produce food | Producers - 1st Trophic Level |
| Organisms that consume plants or other organisms to obtain energy | Consumers - 2nd Trophic Level |
| One of the steps in a food chain or pyramid through which energy is tranferred (examples- producer, priimary consumer, secondary consumer) | Trophic Levels |
| Animals that eat plants | Herbivores or Primary Consumers |
| Animals that eat other Animals | Carnivores or Secondary Consumers |
| Animals that eat both plants and animals | Omnivores |
| Organisms (such as worms, fungi, or bacteria) that obtain energy from waste products or dead bodies | Detritivores or Decomposers |
| Diagram that illustrates the flow of energy through trophic levels | Energy Pyramid |
| The process in which adaptations take place in two species as a result of their interaction | Coevolution |
| A relationship in which one organism kills another for food | Predation |
| A relationship in which one organism lives and feeds on another, but usually does not kill the host. One species benefits; one does not | Parasitism |
| A relationship in which both species benefit | Mutualism |
| A relationship in which one species benefits and one is unaffected | Commensalism |
| A relationships in which two species use or compete for the same resource like food, space, light, or water. | Competition |
| How an organisms lives or the job it performs in the ecosystem | Niche |
| Major biological communities on the earth (such as desert, tundra, tropical rain forest) | Biome |
