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The living parts of an ecosystem.
What is biotic factor?
Organism that can make its own food; a producer.
What is autotroph?
Organisms that must ingest or eat other organisms to obtain energy; Consumer.
What is heterotroph?
Organism that gets energy from eating animals.
What is carnivore?
Organism that eats plants only.
What is herbivore?
Organism that consumes the carcasses of other animals.
What is scavenger?
Organism that eats plants and animals.
What is omnivore?
The nonliving parts of an ecosystem.
What is abiotic factor?
Area where an organism lives; includes biotic and abiotic factors that affect it.
What is habitat?
Organism that can not make its own food and must “eat” other organisms; Heterotroph.
What is consumer?
A group of organisms of the same species living in the same area.
What is population?
The role or job of an organism in its environment; includes how organism gets energy.
What is niche?
All the organisms that live in a place, together with their nonliving environment.
What is ecosystem?
Organism that breaks down dead organic matter to get energy and recycles nutrients back into the environment.
What is decomposer?
The living part of an ecosystem; all the different populations living in the same area.
What is community?
Succession that occurs in an area that was only partially destroyed by a disturbance where the soil is still present.
What is secondary succession?
Shows the relative amounts of energy or matter contained within each trophic level of a food chain or food web.
What is ecological pyramid?
Series of steps in an ecosystem in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten.
What is food chain (food web)?
Symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit from the relationship.
What is mutualism?
Symbiotic relationship in which one organism lives on or inside another organism and harms it.
What is parasitism?
Single species that exerts strong control on the structure of the community. Removal of this species will cause a devastating effect on the ecosystem.
What is keystone species?
The end stage of ecological succession made up of organisms that will remain in the ecosystem unless there is a natural or man-made disturbance.
What is climax community?
First species to populate an area during ecological succession.
What is pioneer species?
Symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed.
What is commensalism?
Succession that occurs in an area where there is no soil and no trace of a previous community, such as barren rock after a volcanic eruption.
What is primary (ecological) succession?