Ecology 1st year Topic 9 Flashcards
Define ecology
The study of how organisms are affected by their environment and by other organisms
Define population
It is a group of individuals living together in a particular geographical area at the same place at the same time and can interbreed.
Define habitat
It is a specific locality within an ecosystem which contains a particular set of environmental conditions and its own particular adapted community of organisms.
Define species
A group of living organisms that are able to interbreed with each other to produce fertile offspring. These fertile offspring will not produce “viable” offspring with members of a different species.
Define a community
A group of naturally occurring populations of different species that lives together and interact as a self-contained unit in the same habitat.
Define an ecosystem
The ecological system based on the relationship between all the living organisms and the non-living component of the environment within which they occur naturally.
Define the biosphere
All ecosystems on earth make up the biosphere.
The biosphere consists of all the total volume, of air, land and water that supports life around the earth’s surface.
Life in the biosphere depends on the sunlight’s energy, on the circulation of heat and on essential nutrients.
What is an ecological niche?
It refers to the functional role of an organism within an ecosystem
Define a biome
A biome is a large ecosystem defined by its distinctive vegetation, animals, and climate, influenced by abiotic factors like light, wind, soil, rainfall, temperature, and nutrients. Examples :grasslands
Define food chain
A food chain shows how energy is passed on from 1 organism to another by showing what each organism eats.
(When 1 organism feeds on another)
Give 3 examples of food chains
Grass: grass hopper: frog:snake
Sun:grass:slug:sparrow
sun:mosses:slug:devil’s coach horse
Distinguish between prey and predator
Prey: the organism which gets eaten
Predator: the organism eating the prey (eater)
Distinguish between producers
primary consumer
secondary consumers and tertiary consumers
producers: they are usuually autrotrophic organisms
Primary consumer
secondary consumer
tertiary consumer
Define trophic level
It is any of the feeding levels from which energy passes through, as it proceeds through the ecosystem
Define a food web
It consists of many interacting food chains. It shows the flow of energy and the decomposers involved
Organisms can feed on more than one organism
What is the role of plants in food chains or food webs?
Plants they absorb sunlight energy in order to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen through the process of photosynthesis which occurs in the chloroplast
Why are food webs important?
Food webs are important because if one of the consumer’s food source dies, then the consumer will have another food source available ensuring survival for that consumer
Define competition
The struggle for the utilization of resources such as food,light,space,mating,companions,oxygen or carbon dioxide etc.,by one or more organisims of the same species (intra-sepcific competition,or by diffrent species (inter-specific competition),that are living together in a community
Define intra-specific competition
The struggle for the utilization of resources such as food,light,space,mating,oxygen or carbon dioxide etc by one or more organisims of the same species that are living together in a community
Define inter-specific competition
The struggle for the utilization of resources such as food,light,water,mating,space,oxygen or carbon dioxide etc by different members of a different species that are living together in a community