ecology

What percent of energy is transferred between trophic levels?

10%

What is competition?

When organisms compete for the same resources.

What are abiotic factors?

Nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

What are secondary consumers?

Organisms that eat primary consumers.

What is mutualism?

This relationship benefits both species.

What is a food web?

Displays multiple paths of energy transfer within an ecosystem.

What is a keystone species?

A type of species in which its removal from an ecosystem would have massive consequences.

What is biomagnification?

Describes the accumulation of pollution through trophic levels.

What is eutrophication?

The process where excessive nutrients enter a body of water due to human interference.

What is mass?

The factor of life that cannot be created nor destroyed.

What is a food chain?

The path of energy passing through an ecosystem.

What are biotic and abiotic factors?

The two factors that make up ecosystems.

What is a population?

Group of organisms of the same species that live in the same geographical area at the same time.

What are limiting factors?

Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Water cycles are this type of limiting factor.

What are decomposers?

Organisms that break down dead plant and animal matter to recycle nutrients back into the soil.

What is a biome?

Term describing a large regional or global community of organisms, characterized by certain climate conditions.

What is parasitism?

Symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits at the expense of another organism.

What is an invasive species?

Non-native organisms in an ecosystem that harm the native organisms of the environment, and the environment itself.

What is a trophic level?

Position that an organism holds relative to others in a food chain.

Ecology

The scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their physical environment.

The sun

Primary energy source for most of life on Earth.

Autotrophs

Organisms that can produce their own food.

Exponential growth

Type of rapid population growth produces a J-shaped curve when resources are entirely unlimited.

Niche

The specific role and position a species occupies within an ecosystem, encompassing how it interacts with both biotic and abiotic components.

Nitrogen fixation

Atmospheric nitrogen is converted into forms usable by plants.

Extinction

If the number of individuals in a species becomes zero that is considered...

Carrying capacity

The maximum population size of a species that an environment can sustain indefinitely.

Commensalism

An ecological relationship where one organism benefits and the other is unaffected.