| A | B |
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| Ecology | Study of how organisms interact with each other and with their environment |
| Host | An organism that is fed upon by another but is not killed by it; ex: human fed on by tick; dog fed on by flea, tree fed on by mistletoe |
| Abiotic factor | Nonliving part of the environment; ex: water, air, temperature, clouds, soil, sunlight |
| Population | Group of individual of the same species living in the same area at the same time; ex: cows in a field, robins in the tree, wolves in the mountains |
| Species | Organisms that are closely related and can mate with each other and make fertile offspring (their babies can have babies) |
| Community | All the population of different species that live in an area; the biotic community or all the living things in that area; ex: birds in the trees, insects in the bush, dogs, cats, people, ants in the neighborhood |
| Ecosystem | A community of organisms and their nonliving environment; all the biotic and abiotic in an area; all the living and nonliving things in an area; ex: ocean, field, pond, mountains, salt marsh |
| Biome | Large region or area that has the same climate and communities of species (plants & animals); ex: tropical rainforest, grassland, desert, ocean |
| Habitat | Place where organisms usually live and provides their water, shelter, food |
| Niche | Role a population plays in the ecosystem; how it gets food, interacts with others; ex: predator, competitor, producer, herbivore |
| Herbivore | Type of consumer where the animal eats only plants to get energy; ex: giraffe, cow, squirrel, cricket |
| Producer | Organisms that use energy, like sunlight, to make food; most do photosynthesis; also called an autotroph |
| Decomposer | Organism that gets energy from breaking down the remains of other organisms; it eats dead things and breaks them down and returns the nutrients to the soil; ex: earthworm, fly, some bacteria |
| Consumer | Organism that eats or absorbs other organisms for food; can’t make their own food from energy; also called a heterotroph |
| Omnivore | Type of consumer where the animal eats both plants and animals to get energy; ex: humans, bears, robins, foxes |
| Carnivore | Type of consumer where the animal eats only other animals to get energy; ex: cougar, wolf, tiger, hawk |
| Food chain | Diagram that shows the path of energy transfer from producers to consumers; show the path that one piece of energy takes; usually a circle where a decomposer returns the nutrients to the soil for the producer to use again |
| Scavenger | Type of consumer where the animal eats dead, sick, and dying organisms or steals food from other animals; it does not return the nutrients to the soil like decomposers; ex: vulture; hyena, crow |
| Energy pyramid | Diagram that shows how energy is passed from one level to the next and is used up at each level; producers are always at the bottom with the highest level consumer at the top |
| Food web | Diagram that shows the flow of energy in the ecosystem; has many different producers and consumers; shows how many different organisms eat each other to get energy |
| tertiary consumer | Third consumer, a carnivore, in a food chain, food web, or energy pyramid; gets about 0.1% of the energy made by the producer |
| Biomass | All the living organisms as a level in the energy pyramid; largest is at the bottom with the plants |
| primary consumer | First consumer, an herbivore, in a food chain, food web, or energy pyramid; gets about 10% of the energy the producer makes |
| secondary consumer | Second consumer, either an omnivore or carnivore, in a food chain, food web, or energy pyramid; gets less energy than the level before it; gets about 1% of the energy made by the producer |
| Carrying capacity | The maximum or largest number of individuals of one species that the environment can support or have enough food, shelter, water, for; when go over this limit animals and plants start to die off |
| Top predator | Last consumer in the food chain, food web, or energy pyramid; nothing but the decomposer gets its energy; gets the least amount of energy from the producer |
| Predation | The relationship where one animal hunts down and eats another animal; predator eats prey |
| Limiting factor | The biotic (living) or abiotic (nonliving) part of the environment that keeps a population size below the carrying capacity; ex: amount of water or shelter, number of predators, amount of food available, diseases, competition |
| Competition | Behavior where two or more individuals or populations are trying to use the same limited resources, like food, water, shelter, sunlight, territory, mates |
| Cooperation | Behavior where individuals of the same species work together to get something done; ex: hunting together, watching out for predators together |
| Predator | Animal that hunts, stalk, and kills another animal for food; ex: hawk, lion, wolf |
| Prey | An animal that is hunted down and eaten by another animal |
| Immigration | Behavior that happens when individuals move into a new location or territory; individuals are joining a new population |
| Emigration | Behavior that happens when individuals move away from where they were currently living; individuals exit the population |
| Symbiosis | A close long-term relationship between organisms in different species where at least one organism is helped |
| Mutualism | Symbiotic relationship where organisms of different species work together and both are helped; ex: coral and algae, clownfish and sea anemone, sponge and brittle star |
| Commensalism | Symbiotic relationship where one organism is helped and the other is not helped or harmed, it is unaffected; ex: osprey hawk and sparrow, robin and tree, shark and remora fish |
| Parasitism | Symbiotic relationship where one organism is helped and the other organism is harmed; the parasite feeds upon the host for energy; ex: tick and dog, flea and cat, leech and human |
| Parasite | An organism that feeds upon another organism for energy but does not kill them; ex: tick, flea, leech, tapeworm, mistletoe |
| Biotic factor | Living things and how they interact with other living things; ex: squirrel, tree, eagle, rabbit, groundhog, bee, worm |
