Unit A: Interactions & Ecosystems - Part 1: Ecosystems and Habitats

Vocabulary flashcards covering ecosystems, habitats, survival needs, adaptations, evolution, symbiosis, and organism interactions.

Ecology

The study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment.

Environment

An area referring to an organism's surroundings and all of the living and nonliving things that exist within it.

Ecosystem

The interactions between living and non-living things within a particular environment, which must be self-supporting.

Self-supporting

The ability of an ecosystem to keep going on its own.

Habitat

The physical surroundings where an organism lives, providing food, shelter, and protection.

Abiotic Factors

Non-living factors in an ecosystem, such as energy, water, minerals, climate conditions, and substrate quality, that affect organisms.

Biotic Factors

Living factors in an environment that affect another organism or shape the ecosystem, including predation, food availability, competition, and disease.

Essential Needs

Required factors that every organism needs to survive, including food, water, sunlight or heat, space, and air or gases.

Adaptation

A characteristic feature or behavior an organism has evolved that helps the species compete for resources to survive and reproduce.

Physical Adaptations

Inherited structural features or body traits—such as beaks, claws, fur, scales, camouflage, or mimicry—that help an organism obtain food or protect itself.

Behavioral Adaptations

The ways an animal acts, which can be learned or instinctual, that help increase its chance for survival.

Learned Behavior

A behavior that an organism learns from parents, guardians, or personal experience to increase survival.

Instinctual Behavior

Hereditary actions and behaviors passed down through generations without needing to be learned.

Evolution

The gradual change in a population over many generations as helpful inherited traits become more common.

Natural Selection

The process where organisms with helpful inherited traits survive and reproduce more often, passing those traits to offspring.

Artificial Selection

The process where humans select and breed organisms for particular traits.

Symbiosis

A close relationship between two different species living together over time.

Mutualism

A symbiotic relationship in which both organisms benefit.

Commensalism

A symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits while the other is unaffected.

Parasitism

A symbiotic relationship in which one organism (the parasite) benefits while the other (the host) is harmed.

Ecosystem Engineer

An organism, such as a beaver, that physically changes its environment, altering habitats and species distribution.