Interactions within Ecosystems Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering interactions within ecosystems, including producers, consumers, decomposers, cycles of matter, ecological succession, and human impacts.

Habitat

A place that provides living things with oxygen, shelter, food, water, and anything else it needs to survive.

Species

The most closely related group of living things that can mate and reproduce the same kind.

Basic Needs of All Living Things

Energy, water, oxygen, suitable living conditions, and nutrients.

Abiotic

The non-living part of an ecosystem.

Herbivore

An animal that consumes mostly plants or plant-like things (e.g., koala, cow, giraffe).

Carnivore

An animal that consumes other animals as food (e.g., fox, tiger, alligator).

Omnivore

An animal that consumes both meat and plants (e.g., bear, raccoon, rats).

Photosynthesis

The process of plants creating their own food.

Chlorophyll

A green pigment in plants that absorbs sunlight.

Food Chain

A model used to show how living things are connected by the food they eat.

Scavengers

Consumers that do not kill for their food, but instead eat the remains of living things killed by others (e.g., vultures, hyenas, ravens).

Harmful Decomposers

Decomposers that cause illness, such as E. coli bacterial (0157:H7) causing food poisoning and Candida albicans causing thrush.

Helpful Decomposers

Organisms that benefit others, including baker's yeast to make bread rise, E. coli (Escherichia coli) producing essential vitamins in the body, and nitrogen-fixing nodules providing chemicals for plants.

Circle of Life

A sacred symbol of the medicine wheel organized around $4$ directions: East, South, West, and North.

Water Cycle

The cyclical movement of water involving evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

Carbon Cycle

The cycle in which carbon-based substances (such as plants) transform into fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas, etc.) and cycle through respiration and human burning.

Food Web

A network connecting all the possible food chains in an ecosystem.

Population

All individual living organisms from the same species that live in a certain place at the same time.

Community

All populations of different species living and interacting together in the same place.

Survival and Competition

The interaction where all living things compete for the resources they need to survive.

Succession

A predictable pattern of ecological change in an ecosystem over time.

Primary Succession

Succession that occurs when an ecological community begins in an isolated area where no previous communities existed.

Secondary Succession

Succession that occurs when an existing community has been destroyed and a new community forms in its place.

Pioneer Species

The first species that arrive in an ecosystem during succession, such as lichens, mosses, fireweed, and young alder trees.

Biomes

A large geographic area characterized by a definite climate that supports certain types of vegetation.

Pesticides

Chemical substances used by farmers to kill pests that consume crops, which can inadvertently harm non-target species in the ecosystem.

DDT (1950 Case Study)

In $1950$, DDT used to eliminate malaria-carrying mosquitoes coated cockroaches; geckos ate them and slowed down; cats ate the geckos and died, causing rat populations carrying diseases and bacteria to surge in villages.

Waste Management Methods

Practices used to manage ecosystem waste, including recycling depots, composting, household hazardous waste operations, sanitary landfills, incineration, and recycled waste.