Ecology Glossary Terms Chapter 1

- a community of plants, animals and smaller organisms that live, feed, reproduce and interact in the same area or environment

EXAMPLE: forest, ocean/sea, tundra, pond, arctic and puddle

- an ecosystem that is capable of withstanding pressure and giving support to a variety of organisms

EXAMPLE: birds that live in Canada in the summer will begin to migrate somewhere warmer for the winter and on their way they must adapt to different ecosystems

- the living (or recently living) parts of an ecosystem

EXAMPLE: plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms

TYPES: symbiosis (interactions between species that live closely), predation (one organism consumes the other), competition (species compete for resources)

- the non-living parts of an ecosystem

EXAMPLE: air (oxygen), water, chemical nutrients, light and soil

- the hard part of the Earth's surface

EXAMPLE: rock, crust, soil and stone

- all the water found on Earth

EXAMPLE: lakes, rivers, oceans and ground water

-the layer of gases above Earth's surface

- the regions of Earth where living organisms exist; not separate from other abiotic spheres

EXAMPLE: environments in water, soil, air that organisms live in

- a chemical that is essential to living things and is cycled through ecosystems

- a process in which nutrient levels in aquatic ecosystems increase, leading to an increase in the populations of primary producers

EXAMPLE: when fertilizer runs off farm a farmland into water algae blooms which causes plants to die due to reduced light and reduces oxygen so fish also die off

- a process that changes solar energy into chemical energy

EQUATION: carbon dioxide + water (light and chlorophyll)= glucose and oxygen

CHEMICAL EQUATION: 6C0²+6H²0↦C6H¹²06+60²

- a category of organisms that is defined by how the organisms gain their energy

NOTE: food chains show trophic levels in ecosystems and pyramids show how energy moves through trophic levels

TYPES: primary producers (make their own food; plants), consumers (must eat other organisms to survive)

• 

- the total mass of living organisms in a defined group or area

- a measure of the amount of energy or biomass transferred from one trophic level to the next higher trophic level

NOTE: there will always be less than 100% passed on as not all of the lower organisms are eaten, not all is digested and the energy is lost as heat (only about 10% is passed on)

- a process in which materials, especially toxins, are ingested by an organism at a rate greater than they are eliminated

• NOTE: DDT & PCB's

- the increase in the concentration of a toxin as it moves from one trophic level to the next

- a process that releases energy from organic molecules, especially carbohydrates, in the presence of oxygen

NOTE: it is the most common and efficient way to break down energy from glucose

- a process that releases energy from organic molecules, especially carbohydrates, in the absence of oxygen

- are atmospheric gases that prevent heat from leaving the atmosphere, thus increasing the temperature of the atmosphere

EXAMPLE: water vapour, methane, carbon dioxide

- the warming of Earth as a result of greenhouse gases, which trap some of the energy that would otherwise leave Earth

FUN FACT: it is called greenhouse effect because the gases trap the Earth's heat just like the glass traps the heat in a greenhouse

- rain, snow, or fog that is unnaturally acidic due to gases in the atmosphere that react with water to form acids

NOTE: when you burn fossil fuels it releases nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide which combine with water to form sulfuric acid