Unit 6: Ecology and Sustainability

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering fundamental ecological concepts, food chains, cycles of matter, symbiotic relationships, and human impacts on the environment from Unit 6.

Ecology

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

Biotic factors

Influences that come from living nature, specifically from other organisms.

Abiotic factors

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

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 in a given area.

Biotope

All the abiotic factors together in a given area.

Ecosystem

A specific area in which the community (biotic factors) and biotope (abiotic factors) form an integral whole or unit.

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 serves as the food source for the next.

Food web

A network formed by all the interrelated feeding relationships within an ecosystem.

Biomass

The total amount of all the high-energy substances (such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) in an organism or level of a food chain.

Heavy metals

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

Accumulation

The buildup of toxic substances, such as heavy metals, in animals at the end of a food chain as the substances end up concentrated in smaller amounts of biomass.

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.

Producers

Organisms, such as plants, that produce food for all other organisms via photosynthesis and form the first link in a food chain.

Consumers

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

Biological degradation

The process by which breakdown agents (bacteria and fungi) break down organic waste and faeces from plants and animals.

Non-biodegradable waste

Waste made from materials that cannot be broken down biologically, such as glass, metal, stone, and petroleum-based plastics.

Plastic soup

Floating islands of plastic waste in the major oceans, some of which are the size of France or larger.

Microplastics

Microscopically small particles of plastic created when synthetic materials fragment under the influence of sunlight.

Biological equilibrium

The state of balance in an ecosystem where a population fluctuates from year to year around a stable equilibrium value.

Territory

An area that is defended against members of the same species to serve as a hunting area or space for raising young.

Symbiosis

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

Mutualism

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

Commensalism

A form of symbiosis where one individual benefits while the other neither benefits nor is disadvantaged.

Parasitism

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

Biodiversity

The variation of species in nature.

Exhaustion

An environmental problem caused when humans remove substances and natural resources (such as minerals and fossil fuels) from the environment.

Pollution

An environmental problem caused when humans add harmful substances, such as waste products and chemicals, to the environment.

Monoculture

The agricultural practice of growing the same crop on large plots of land year after year, which leads to soil exhaustion.

Greenhouse gases

Gases in the atmosphere, primarily water vapour and carbon dioxide, that block and reflect heat radiation back to Earth.

Enhanced greenhouse effect

The increased warming of the Earth caused by higher concentrations of human-generated greenhouse gases trapping extra heat radiation.

Climate change

The alteration of the average weather type over a long period.

Salinification

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