Biology Vocabulary Chapters 3-6
Terms
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- population density
- number of individuals per unit area
- population
- group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area
- biosphere
- the part of the Earth in which life exists, including land, water, and air or atmostphere
- carrying capacity
- largest number of individuals of a population that a environment can support, symbolised by the letter K
- ecology
- the environment as it relates to living organisms
- mutualism
- species benefit from relationship, flowers and their pollinators
- food chain
- a series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten
- ecological pyramid
- a diagram that shows the relative amounts of energy or matter contained within each trophic types of ecological pyramids: energy pyramids, biomass pyramids, and pyramids of numbers
- density independent
- limiting factors that affect the population, regardless of the size (abiotic)
- parasitism
- the relation between two different kinds of organisms in which one receives benefits from the other (host) by causing damage to it (usually not fatal damage)
- food web
- network of complex interactions formed by the feeding relationships among the various organisms in an ecosystem
- herbivore
- an animal that only eats plants.
- exponential growth
- occurs when the individuals in a population reproduce at a constant rate; J-shaped curve; associated with R strategists and the formula ∆N=rN
- denitrification
- conversion of nitrates into nitrogen gas
- decomposer
- eats and breaks down dead matter
- ecosystem
- collection of all the organisms that live in a particular place, together with their nonliving environment
- competitive exclusive
- no two species can occupy the same exact niche in the same habitat at the same time
- omnivore
- an animal that feeds on both animal and vegetable substances
- density dependent
- limiting factors that affect the population depending on the size (biotic)
- symbiosis
- the living together in close association of two different organisms
- transpiration
- loss of water through leaves
- community
- assemblage of different populations that live together in a defined area
- species
- group of similar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring
- carnivore
- any animal that feeds on flesh
- commensalism
- a close relationship; one species benefits, the other doesn't benefit but isn't harmed
- habitat
- the type of environment in which an organism or group normally lives or occurs
- biomass
- the total mass of living matter in a given unit area
- niche
- full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organsim lives and the way in which the organism uses those conditions
- evaporation
- the process by which water changes from liquid form to an atmospheric gas
- nitrogen fixation
- process of converting nitrogen gas into ammonia
- logistic growth
- growth pattern in which a population's growth rate slows or stops following a period of exponential growth; S-shaped curve, associated with K strategists and the formula ∆N=r[N(K-N)]/K
- trophic level
- each step in a food chain or food web