Ecology and Data Analysis Flashcards

Vocabulary terms covering ecological relationships, the water cycle, factors affecting transpiration, and data types for graph plotting.

Predation

An interspecific relationship where a predator catches, kills, and eats its prey, benefiting the predator and harming the prey.

Competition

An interaction where two species attempt to obtain and use the same limited resource, which harms both species involved.

Parasitism

A relationship where a parasite lives on or in its host, obtaining food from it; this benefits the parasite and harms the host.

Mutualism

An interaction where two species live in close association and both species benefit.

Commensalism

An interaction that benefits one species and does not affect the other species at all.

Territoriality

An intraspecific relationship involves confrontation or competition for access to territory, often marked by odors or vocalization.

Group defence

A safety strategy where many animals live in large groups, such as bison in herds or tuna in large schools.

Sexual conflict

An intraspecific relationship where males compete to mate with females, such as male bighorn sheep headbutting.

Monogamy

A system where males and females form pairs and do not mate with any others to maximise the chances of offspring survival.

Parental care

A role played by parents in raising their offspring, as seen in Emperor penguins where both parents forage for the chick.

Cannibalistic predation

An intraspecific relationship where members of the same species eat each other, such as large northern pike eating smaller pike.

Infanticide

The killing of infants by a new dominant male, observed in species like the black-footed grey langur.

Interdependence

A state within a community where species interact and depend on each other for food, shelter, pollination, and seed dispersal.

Stable community

A community where all species and environmental factors are in balance so that population sizes remain fairly constant.

Evaporation

The phase of the water cycle where the sun heats the Earth’s surface and water is turned into water vapour.

Condensation

The phase of the water cycle where moist air rises and cools, turning water vapour back into liquid water to produce clouds.

Precipitation

The process where water droplets in clouds get heavier and fall as rain, snow, or hail.

Percolation

The movement of water as it trickles through gaps in soil and rocks.

Transpiration

The loss of water from plants directly to the atmosphere.

Continuous data

Variables that have values that can be any number.

Discrete data

A variable that can only have whole number values.

Categoric data

A variable that has values that are words, such as gender or hair colour.

Independent Variable (IV)

The variable that is changed in an experiment, which is typically plotted on the $x$-axis of a graph.

Dependent Variable (DV)

The variable that is measured in an experiment, which is typically plotted on the $y$-axis of a graph.