4a - Organisms and the Environment

Abiotic factors

非生物因素 (fēishēngwù yīnsù) The non-living chemical and physical parts of an ecosystem that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems (e.g., light intensity, temperature, pH, water availability, soil type).

Biodiversity

生物多样性 (shēngwù duōyàngxìng) The variety of different species of organisms living in an ecosystem. It considers both the number of different species and the relative abundance of individuals within each species.

Biotic factors

生物因素 (shēngwù yīnsù) The living components of an ecosystem that affect other organisms or the ecosystem itself (e.g., food availability, predation, disease, competition).

Community

（生物）群落 ((shēngwù) qúnluò) All the different populations of different species of organisms living and interacting together in a particular habitat at a certain time.

Consumers

消费者 (xiāofèizhě) Organisms that obtain energy by feeding on other organisms. They cannot make their own food. (e.g., herbivores, carnivores, omnivores).

Decomposers

分解者 (fēnjiězhě) Organisms (mainly bacteria and fungi) that break down dead organic matter (dead plants and animals, waste products), releasing nutrients back into the ecosystem.

Ecosystems

生态系统 (shēngtài xìtǒng) A community of interacting organisms (biotic factors) and their physical environment (abiotic factors) functioning together as a unit.

Habitat

栖息地 (qīxīdì) The natural home or environment where an organism, population, or species lives.

Population

种群 (zhǒngqún) A group of organisms of the same species living in the same habitat at the same time, and capable of interbreeding.

Producers

生产者 (shēngchǎnzhě) Organisms, typically plants or algae, that can make their own food (organic molecules like glucose) from simple inorganic substances, usually through photosynthesis. They form the base of food chains.

Quadrat

样方 (yàngfāng) A square frame of a known area (e.g., 1m x 1m) used in ecological sampling to estimate the abundance or distribution of slow-moving or non-moving organisms (like plants) in a habitat.