Terms : Hide Images
| 202535081 | Ecology | scientific study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment | |
| 202535082 | Distribution of organisms | interactions between organisms and their environments | |
| 202535083 | Abiotic Components | Nonliving chemical and physical factors in the environment. | |
| 202535084 | Biotic Components | All the organisms that are part of the environment. | |
| 202535085 | Competition for survival | Organism may compete with an individual food and resources, prey upon it | |
| 202535086 | Interaction of organism | An important cause of evolutionary change | |
| 202535087 | Ecological time | minutes, months, years | |
| 202535088 | Evolutionary time | decades, centuries, millennia, and longer | |
| 202535089 | Ecology can be divided into 4 levels of study | Organismal Ecology, Population, community, ecosystem | |
| 202535090 | Organismal Ecology | The branch of ecology concerned with the morphological, physiological, and behavioral ways in which individual organisms meet the challenges posed by their biotic and abiotic environments | |
| 202535091 | Population Ecology | The study of populations in relation to the environment, including environmental influences on population density and distribution, age structure, and variations in population size. | |
| 202535092 | Community Ecology | The study of how interactions between species affect comm, The study of how interactions between species affect community structure and organization | |
| 202535093 | Ecosystem | All the abiotic factors in addition to the entire community of species that exist in a certain area | |
| 202535094 | Landscape | Consists of several different ecosystems linked by exchange of energy, materials and organisms | |
| 202535095 | Biosphere | Global System - The sum of all the planet's ecosystem | |
| 202535096 | Precautionary principle | The rule that we should leave a margin of safety for unexpected developments. | |
| 202535097 | Biogeography | Study of the past and present distribution of individual speices | |
| 202535098 | Dispersal | Critical process for understanding both geographic isolation in evolution and the broad patterns of current geographic distributions | |
| 202535099 | Ten rule | Only about 10% of the energy in one trophic level is passed on to the next higher level. | |
| 202574879 | Abiotic factors affect the distribution of organisms | Temperature, Water, Sunlight, Wind, Rock and Soil | |
| 202574880 | Major components of climate | Temperature, precipitation, sunlight, wind | |
| 202574881 | Biomes | Large geographic areas with similar climates and ecosystems | |
| 202574882 | Thermocline | Narrow vertical zone seperate warm water at the surface | |
| 202574883 | Turnover | Brings oxygenated water from the surface of lakes to the bottom and nutrient-rich water from the bottom to the surface in both spring and autumn | |
| 202574884 | Microclimate | Climate varies on a very fine scale | |
| 202574885 | Photic zone | Regions of a body of water where light penetrates, enabling photosynthesis | |
| 202574886 | Aphotic zone | Little light penetrates | |
| 202574887 | Benthic zone | The bottom surface of an aquatic environment | |
| 202574888 | Benthos | Organisms (plants and animals) that live at or near the bottom of a sea | |
| 202574889 | Detritus | Dead organic matter | |
| 202574890 | Profundal zone | Deep aphotic zone that is below the limits of effective light penetration | |
| 202574891 | Eutrophic | A nutrient rich, oxygen poor lake having a high rate of biological productivity | |
| 202574892 | Mesotrophic | Lakes with moderate amounts of nutrients and phytoplankton productivity intermediate to oligotrophic and eutrophic systems. | |
| 202574893 | Wetland | An area covered with water that supports aquatic plants | |
| 202574894 | Hydrophytes | Water plants that can grow in water or in soil | |
| 202574895 | Estuary | The area where a freshwater stream or river merges with the ocean | |
| 202574896 | Intertidal zone | The zone where land meets water | |
| 202574897 | Neritic zone | Beyond intertidal zone, The shallow region of the ocean overlying the continental shelf. | |
| 202574898 | Oceantic zone | Reaching very depths | |
| 202574899 | Palagic zone | Open water of any depth | |
| 202574900 | Benthic zone | At the bottom of which is seafloor | |
| 202574901 | Abyssal zone | The deep sea (2000 meters or more) where there is no light | |
| 202574902 | Canopy | a covering (usually of cloth) that serves as a roof to shelter an area from the weather | |
| 202574903 | Population | Group of individuals of a single species that simultaneously occupy the same general area | |
| 202647241 | Population density | Number of individuals per unit area or volume | |
| 202647242 | Dispersion | Pattern of spacing amoung individuals within the geographic boundries of the population | |
| 202647243 | Mark-Recapture Method | A sampling technique used to estimate wildlife populations. | |
| 202647244 | Clumped | Describing a dispersion pattern in which individuals are aggregate in patches | |
| 202647245 | Uniform | Very spaced, pattern of dispersion | |
| 202647246 | Random | Absence of strong attractions or resulsions among individuals of a population | |
| 202647247 | Demography | The study of the vital statistics that affect population size | |
| 202647248 | Life table | An age-specific summary of the survival pattern of a population | |
| 202647249 | Cohort | a group people having approximately the same age | |
| 202647250 | Survivorship curve | A plot of the number of members of a cohort that are still alive at each age; one way to represent age-specific mortality. | |
| 202647251 | Reproductive table | Age-specific summary of the reproductive rates in a population | |
| 202647252 | Life History | The traits that effect an organism's schedule of reproduction and survival | |
| 202647253 | Big-bang reproduction | Reproduction in which an organism produces all of its offspring in a single event; also known as semelparity. | |
| 202647254 | Semelparity | Big-bang reproduction | |
| 202647255 | Repeated Reproduction (Iteroparity) | Reproduction in which adults produce large number of offsprings each year | |
| 202647256 | Zero population growth | When the capta birth rates and death rates are equal | |
| 202647257 | Exponential population growth | All members have acess to abundand food and are free to reproduce at their physiological capacity | |
| 202647258 | Intrinsic rate of increase | Rate at which the population of a species would grow if it had unlimited resources | |
| 202647259 | Carrying Capacity | Maximum population size that a particular environment cans support at a particular time with no degradation of the habitat | |
| 202647260 | Logistic population growth | Incorperates the effect of population density on the per capita rate of increase, when populations are well below the size dictated by the carrying capacity of the region they live in, they will grow exponentially, but as they approach the carrying capacity, their growth rate will decrease and the size of the population will eventually become stable. | |
| 202647261 | Allee Effect | Individuals may have a more difficult time surviving or reproducin gif the population size is too small | |
| 202647262 | K-selection | Selection for life history traits that are sensitive to population density | |
| 202647263 | Density dependent | A death rate that rises as population density rises | |
| 202647264 | Negative feedback | Density dependent | |
| 202647265 | Demographic transition | The movement from high birth rates and high death rates toward low birth rates and low death rates | |
| 202647266 | Age structure | The relative number of individuals of each age | |
| 202647267 | Ecological footprint | A way of measuring how much of an impact a person or community has on the earth. Someone who uses more natural resources will have a bigger footprint than someone who uses less. | |
| 202647268 | Biological Community | Assemblage of species living close enough together for potential interaction | |
| 202647269 | Species Richness | The number of species a community contains | |
| 202647270 | Relative abundance | Some species are common, some are rare | |
| 202647271 | Individualistic hypothesis | The concept, put forth by H. A. Gleason, that a plant community is a chance assemblage of species found in the same area simply because they happen to have similar biotic requirements. | |
| 202647272 | Interactive hypothesis | Locked into association by mandatory biotic interactions that cause the community to function as an intergrated unit | |
| 202647273 | Rivet model | The concept that many or most of the species in a community are associated tightly with other species in a web of life. | |
| 202647274 | Redundancy model | The concept that most of the species in a community are not tightly couple with one another | |
| 202647275 | Interspecific interactions | Relationships between species in a community | |
| 202647276 | Interspecific competition | Competition between different species | |
| 202647277 | Competitive exclusion principle | A slight reproductivce advantage will eventually lead to local elimination of the inferior competitor | |
| 202647278 | Ecological niche | The sum of a species' use of the biotic and abiotic resources in its environment | |
| 202647279 | Resource partitioning | The differentiation of niches that enables similar species to coexist in a community | |
| 202647280 | Character displacement | The tendency for characteristics to be more divergent in sympatric populations of two species than in allopatric populations of the same two species. | |
| 202647281 | predation | Interaction in which one organism captures and feeds on another organism | |
| 202647282 | Herbivory | An interaction in which an organism eats parts of a plant. | |
| 202647283 | Parasitism | A parasite lives on or in its host organism and depends on the host species for nutrition | |
| 202647284 | Plant defense against herbivores | Chemical toxins, often in combinatino with antipredator spines and thorns, are plant's main arsenal against being eaten to extinction | |
| 202647285 | Animal defenses against predators | Animals can avoid being eaten by using passive defense | |
| 202647286 | Cryptic Coloration | Passive defense that makes potential prey difficult to spot against its background, coloring that conceals or disguises an animal's shape | |
| 202647287 | Aposematic coloration | Animals with effective chemical defenses are often brightly colored, a warning to predators | |
| 202647288 | Batesian mimicry | A palatable or harmless species mimics an unpalatable or harmful model | |
| 202647289 | Mullerian mimicry | Two or more unpalatable species resemble each other | |
| 202647290 | Endoparasites | Parasites that live within their host | |
| 202647291 | Ectoparasites | Parasites that feed on the external surface of a host | |
| 202647292 | Parasitoidism | A type of parasitism in which an insect lays eggs on or in a living host | |
| 202647293 | Pathogens | organisms that cause disease | |
| 202647294 | Mutualism | Interspecific interaction that benefits both species | |
| 202647295 | Commensalism | The relation between two different kinds of organisms when one receives benefits from the other without damaging it | |
| 202647296 | Coevolution | The evolution of two or more species that is due to mutual influence, often in a way that makes the relationship more mutually beneficial | |
| 202647297 | Trophic Structure | Relationships between organisms | |
| 202647298 | Food chain | The transfer of food energy from its source in plants and other photosynthetic organisms through herbivores to carnivores and eventually to decomposers | |
| 202647299 | Trophic level | Each step in a food chain or food web. | |
| 202647300 | Food webs | Food chain are hooked together into | |
| 202647301 | Energetic hypothesis | The length of food chain is limited by the inefficiency of energy transfer along the chain | |
| 202647302 | Dynamic stability hypothesis | Long food chains are less stable than short chains | |
| 202647303 | Dominant species | Species in a community that have the highest abundance | |
| 202647304 | Biomass | The sum weight of all individuals in a population | |
| 202647305 | Keystone Species | a species whose impact on its community or ecosystem are much larger and more influential than would be expected from mere abundance | |
| 202647306 | Bottom-up model | A model of community organization in which mineral nutrients control community organization because nutrients control plant numbers, which in turn control herbivore numbers, which in turn control predator numbers | |
| 202941223 | Top-down model | A model of community organization in which predation controls community organization because predators control herbivores, which in turn control plants, which in turn control nutrient levels; also called the trophic cascade model. | |
| 202941224 | Stability | Tendency of a community to reach and maintain equilibrium | |
| 202941225 | Nonequilibrium model | The model of communities that emphasizes that they are not stable in time but constantly changing after being buffeted by disturbances. | |
| 202941226 | Disturbances | Events, such as storms, fire, flouds, droughts that damage community | |
| 202941227 | Ecological succession | The gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established | |
| 202941228 | Primary succession | Process if it begins in a virtually lifeless are where soil has not yet formed | |
| 202941229 | Secondary succession | Succession following a disturbance that destroys a community without destroying the soil | |
| 202941230 | Biodiversity | The variety of species living within an ecosystem | |
| 202941231 | Species richness | Total number of different species in the community | |
| 202941232 | Relative abundance | Distribution of different species | |
| 202941233 | Species-area curve | The larger the geographic area of a community we sample, the greater the number of species | |
| 202941234 | Primary producer | Organisms that produce energy available for other organisms to eat | |
| 202941235 | Heterotrophs | Organisms that cannot make their own food | |
| 202941236 | Primary consumer | Consumer that feeds directly on producers, herbivores | |
| 202941237 | Secondary consumers | Carnivores that eat herbivores | |
| 202941238 | Tertiary consumers | Carnivores that eat other carnivores | |
| 202941239 | Detritivores (Decomposer) | Consumers that get their energy from detritus | |
| 202941240 | Detritus | Nonliving organic material | |
| 202941241 | Primary Production | The amount of light energy converted to chemical energy by an ecosystem's autotrophs | |
| 202941242 | GPP-Gross Primary Production | Amount of light energy that is converted to chemical energy by photosynthesis per unit | |
| 202941243 | NPP-Net Primary Production | GPP minus the energy used by the primary producers for respiration | |
| 202941244 | Biomass | Weight of vegetation added to the ecosystem per unit area per unit time | |
| 202941245 | Standing crop | Total biomass of photosynthesis autotrophs presents at a given time | |
| 202941246 | Limiting nutrient | Nutrient that must be added for production to increase | |
| 202941247 | Eutrophication | Process by which a body of water becomes too rich in dissolved nutrients, leading to plant growth that depletes oxygen | |
| 202941248 | Secondary production | The amount of chemical energy in consumers' food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period | |
| 202941249 | Production efficiency | The fraction of energy stored in food that is not used for respiration | |
| 202941250 | Trophic efficiency | Percentage of production transferred from one trophic level to the next | |
| 202941251 | Pyramid of production | The representation of the loss of energy with each transfer in a food chain in which trophic levels are stacked in blocks, with primary producers forming the foundation of the pyramid | |
| 202941252 | Biomass pyramid | Each tier represents the standing crop in a trophic level | |
| 202941253 | Turnover time | The time required to replace the standing crop of a population or group of populations, calculated as the ratio of standing crop biomass to production | |
| 202941254 | Pyramid of numbers | The size of each block is proportional to the number of individual organisms present in each trophic level | |
| 202941255 | Green world hypothesis | The conjecture that terrestrial herbivores consume relatively little plant biomass because they are held in check by a variety of factors, including predators, parasites, and disease | |
| 202941256 | Biogeochemical cycles | Nutrient circuits that involve both biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems | |
| 202941257 | Nitrogen fixation | Convert nitrogen gas to minerals that can be used to synthesize nitrogenous organic compounds such as amino acid | |
| 202941258 | Nitrification | The activity oxidizes ammonium to nitrite and then to nitrate | |
| 202941259 | Denitrification | Some bacteria can obtain the oxygen they need for metabolism from nitrate | |
| 202941260 | Ammonification | The decomposition of organic nitrogen back to ammonium | |
| 202941261 | Long-term ecological research | To monitor the dynamics of natural ecosystems over long period of time | |
| 202941262 | Critical load | The amount of added nitrogen that can be absorbed by plants without damaging ecosystem | |
| 202941263 | Acid precipitation | Rain, snow, or fog that has a pH less than 5.6 | |
| 202941264 | Biological magnification | Process of toxins becoming more concentrated | |
| 202941265 | Green house effect | Process by which heat is trapped by gasses in earth's atmosphere | |
| 202941266 | The three levels of biodiversity | Genetic diversity, Species diversity, ecosystem diversity | |
| 202941267 | Endangered species | A species whose numbers are so small that the species is at risk of extinction | |
| 202941268 | Threatened species | Those are likely to become endangered | |
| 202941269 | Ecosystem services | Important environmental benefits, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and fertile soil in which to grow crops, that ecosystems provide | |
| 202941270 | Four major threats to biodiversity | Habitat destruction, Introduced species, Over exploitation, food chain disruptions | |
| 202941271 | Introduced species | Those that humans more from the species native location to new geographic regions | |
| 202941272 | Overexploitation | Human harvesting of wild plants or animals at rates exceeding the ability of populations of those species to rebound | |
| 202941273 | Small population approach | Process that can cause very small populations to finally become extinct | |
| 202941274 | Extinction vortex | A downward population spiral in which positive-feedback loops of inbreeding and genetic drift cause a small population to shrink, and unless reversed, become extinct. | |
| 202941275 | MVP | Minimum Viable Population Size | |
| 202941276 | Effective population size | An estimate of the size of a population based on the numbers of females and males that successfully breed; generally smaller than the total population. | |
| 202941277 | The declining population approach | A proactive conservation strategy for detecting, diagnosing, and halfing population declines | |
| 202941278 | Movement corridor | A narrow strip or series of small clumps of quality habitat connecting otherwise isolated patches | |
| 202941279 | Biodiversity hotspot | a relatively small area with an exceptional concentration of endemic species and a large number of endangered and threatened species | |
| 202941280 | Zoned reserve | Area of land that is relatively undisturbed by humans and is surrounded by buffer zones that are minimally impacted by humans | |
| 202941281 | Restoration ecology | Applying ecological principles in an effort to return ecosystems that have been disturbed by human activity to a condition as similar as possible to their natural state. |
