chapter 4 key terms Flashcards
(21 cards)
ecosystems
An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life. Ecosystems contain biotic or living, parts, as well as abiotic factors, or nonliving parts
biotic factor
a living thing, as an animal or plant, that influences or affects an ecosystem:
abiotic factor
a living thing, as an animal or plant, that influences or affects an ecosystem:
organism
In biology, an organism (from Greek: ὀργανισμός, organismos) is any organic, living system that functions as an individual entity.
species
species, in biology, classification comprising related organisms that share common characteristics and are capable of interbreeding
population
a community of animals, plants, or humans among whose members interbreeding occurs.
community
a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.
habitat
Habitat refers to the place or the location where an organism (or a biological population) lives, resides or exists.
natural selection
the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution.
evaporation
the process of turning from liquid into vapor.
adaptation
In biology and ecology, adaptation refers to the process of adjusting in behavior, physiology, or structure to become more suited to an environment.
artificial selection
Artificial selection or selective breeding describes the human selection of breeding pairs to produce favorable offspring. This applies to all organisms – from virus to four-footer, and from pet to food source. Artificial selection aims to increase the productive or esthetic value of an organism to our advantage.
resistance
resistance is the ability of one or more organisms to tolerate a particular chemical designed to kill it
archaea
Archaea, any of a group of single-celled prokaryotic organisms with distinct molecular characteristics separating them from bacteria and eukaryotes.
bacteria
Bacteria are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms.
fungus
A fungus is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms.
protist
A protist (/ˈproʊtɪst/) is any eukaryotic organism (that is, an organism whose cells contain a cell nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus.
gymnosperm
gymnosperm, any vascular plant that reproduces by means of an exposed seed, or ovule—unlike angiosperms, or flowering plants, whose seeds are enclosed by mature ovaries, or fruits.
angiosperm
Angiosperm, any of about 300000 species of flowering plants, the largest and most diverse group in the plant kingdom
invertebrate
Invertebrate, any animal that lacks a vertebral column, or backbone, in contrast to the cartilaginous or bony vertebrates.
vertebrate
Vertebrates comprise all species of animals within the subphylum Vertebrata (chordates with backbones).
