Chp 18 Bio

The study of the interactions between organisms and the living and nonliving compenents of their environment

All organisms interact with other organisms in their surroundings and with the nonliving portion of their environment, their survival depends on these interactions

Represents/describes the components of an ecological system

The broadest, most inclusive level of organization

Includes all of the organisms and the nonliving environment found in a particular place

All the interacting organisms living in an area

Includes all the members of a species that live in one place at one time

The place where an organism lives

The living components of the environment

The nonliving factors of the environment

A graph of performance versus values of an environmental variable

Process where some organisms can adjust their tolerance to abiotic factors

Organisms that do not regulate their internal conditions; they change as their external environment changes

Organisms that use energy to control some of their internal conditions

A longer-term strategy is to enter a state of reduced activity

Another strategy is to move to a more favorable habitat

The specific role, or way of life, of a species within its environment

Species with broad nishec; they can tolerate a range of conditions and use a variety of resources

Species that have narrow niches

Autotrophs that capture energy and use it to make organic molecules

Bacteria use energy stored in organic molecules to produce carbohydrates

The rate at which producers in an ecosystem capture the energy of sunlight by producing organic compounds

Ecologists refer to the organic material that has been produced in an ecosystem

The rate at which biomass accumulates

Heterotrophs that obtain energy by consuming organic molecules made by other organisms

Eat producers

Eat other consumers

Eat both producers and consumers

Consumers that feed on the "garbage" of an ecosystem

Organisms that cause decay by breaking down complex molecules into simpler molecules

Indicates the organism's position in a sequence of energy transfers

A single pathway of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosytem that results in energy transfer

The interrelated food chains in an ecosystem

Substances such as water, carbon, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus each pass between the living and nonliving worlds

Water in the soil or in underground formations of porous rock is known

The movement of water between these various reservoirs

The process by which water evaporates from the leaves of plants in terrestrial ecosystems

Photosynthesis and cellular respiration form the basis of this

The complex pathway that nitrogen follows in an ecosystem

The process of converting N2 gas to nitrate

Transforms nitrogen gas into a usable form

The process which decomposers break down materials and release the nitrogen they contain as ammonia, NH3, which in soil becomes ammonium, NH4+

Soil bacteria take up ammonium and oxidize it into nitrites, NO2-, and nitrates, NO3-

Nitrogen is returned to the atmosphere

The movement of phosphorus from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment