Unit 6: Ecology and Sustainability

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering ecological levels, feeding relationships, nutrient cycles, population dynamics, and human environmental impacts from Unit 6.

Ecology

The part of biology concerning the relationships between organisms and their environments.

Biotic factors

Influences that come from living nature, meaning influences that come from other organisms.

Abiotic factors

Influences that come from the non-living aspects of nature, such as light, temperature, air, water, and soil.

Individual

A single organism or living creature.

Population

A group of individuals of the same species living together in a given area that reproduce together.

Community

All the populations of different species that live together and affect each other in a given area.

Biotope

All the abiotic factors together in a given area.

Ecosystem

A specific area in which the biotic and abiotic factors form a unit (the community and biotope together).

Biosphere

The part of the Earth (water, soil, and atmosphere) in, on, and around it where life is possible.

Food chain

A series of organisms in which each organism is the food source for the next.

Link

Each individual food source in a food chain.

Food web

An interrelated network of all the feeding relationships in an ecosystem.

Biomass

The total amount of all high-energy substances (such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) in an organism.

Heavy metals

A collective term for toxic metals such as cadmium, mercury, lead, arsenic, and tin that are harmful to organisms.

Accumulation

The process by which non-degradable toxic substances build up in increasingly higher concentrations in animals at the end of a food chain.

Scavengers

Organisms that feed on the dead remains of plants and animals.

Breakdown agents

Bacteria and fungi that break down the remains left by scavengers into carbon dioxide, minerals, and water.

Nutrient cycle

The continuous process in nature where substances from dead remains are broken down into minerals, water, and carbon dioxide to be reabsorbed by producers.

Producers

Organisms (plants) that make their own food through photosynthesis and serve as the first link in a food chain.

Consumers

Animals that eat the substances produced by plants or other animals, forming the second and subsequent links in a food chain.

Water cycle

The natural process where water evaporates from oceans, condenses into clouds, falls as precipitation, and returns via rivers to oceans and seas.

Carbon cycle

The natural cycle showing the movement and forms of carbon between the air, producers, consumers, and breakdown agents.

Biodegradable waste

Waste from plants and animals (or products made from them, like paper) that can be biologically broken down by bacteria and fungi.

Non-biodegradable waste

Waste made of materials such as glass, metal, stone, and petroleum-based plastics that cannot be biologically degraded.

Plastic soup

Floating islands of plastic waste in the major oceans that persist for years and break down into microplastics.

Microplastics

Microscopically small pieces of plastic fragmented from larger synthetic products under the influence of sunlight.

Biological equilibrium

The natural balance wherein a population fluctuates from year to year around an equilibrium value.

Territory

An area defended by an animal against members of the same species to reduce fights, serve as a hunting ground, or raise young.

Hierarchy

A social ranking order in group-living animals where one animal is the dominant boss, reducing the risk of fights.

Symbiosis

A long-term relationship or coexistence between individuals of two different species.

Mutualism

A form of symbiosis in which both participating species benefit from the coexistence.

Commensalism

A form of symbiosis where one organism benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed.

Parasitism

A form of symbiosis in which one individual (the parasite) lives on or inside another species (the host) and harms it.

Biodiversity

The variety and variation of different species in nature.

Extinction

The permanent disappearance of an entire species from Earth.

Exhaustion

An environmental problem caused when humans remove substances and natural resources (such as raw materials and fossil fuels) faster than they are replenished.

Pollution

An environmental problem caused when humans add harmful substances or waste products to the air, water, or soil.

Fossil fuels

Non-renewable energy resources, specifically natural gas, petroleum, and coal, formed millions of years ago from the remains of dead plants and animals.

Monoculture

The agricultural practice of cultivating the same crop species on the same large plot of land every year, which exhausts soil minerals.

Greenhouse gases

Atmospheric gases, primarily water vapour and carbon dioxide, that absorb and reflect heat radiation back toward the Earth's surface.

Enhanced greenhouse effect

The additional warming of the Earth caused by higher concentrations of human-generated greenhouse gases reflecting more heat radiation back to Earth.

Climate change

A long-term shift in the average weather type and global climate conditions over an extended period.

Salinification

The process by which salty seawater intrudes and mixes with fresh river water, groundwater, and ditch water during extreme droughts.