The scientific discipline in which the relationships among living organisms and the interaction of the organisms have with their environments are studied.
What is ecology?
100
A heterotroph that eats both plants and animals.
What is an omnivore?
100
Anything that takes up space and has mass.
What is matter?
100
A living thing in an organism's environment.
What is a biotic factor?
100
The act of one organism consuming another organism for its food.
What is predation?
200
The portion of Earth that supports life.
What is the biosphere?
200
A single step in a food chain or food web.
What is a trophic level?
200
A chemical substance that an organism must obtain from its environment to sustain life and to undergo life processes.
What is a nutrient?
200
A nonliving thing in an organism's environment.
What is an abiotic factor?
200
The close relationship that exists when two or more species live together.
What is symbiosis?
300
A group of interacting populations that occupy the same geographic area at the same time.
What is a biological community?
300
The total mass of living matter at each trophic level.
What is biomass?
300
The exchange of matter through the biosphere.
What is the biogeochemical cycle?
300
A heterotroph that only eats plants.
What is a herbivore?
300
The relationship in which one organism benefits and the other organism is neither helped nor harmed.
What is commensalism?
400
The role or position that an organism has in its environment.
What is a niche?
400
An organism that collects energy from sunlight or inorganic substances to produce food.
What is an autotroph?
400
The process of capture and conversion of nitrogen into a form that is useable by plants.
What is nitrogen fixation?
400
A heterotroph that only eats other animals and meats.
What is a carnivore?
400
A symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits at the expense of another organism.
What is parasitism?
500
The relationship between two or more organisms that live closely together and benefit from each other.
What is mutualism?
500
A simple model that shows how energy flows through an ecosystem.
What is a food chain?
500
Soil bacteria convert fixed nitrogen compounds back into nitrogen gas, which returns it to the atmosphere.
What is denitrification?
500
A heterotroph that feeds on and breaks down dead plant or animal matter, returning essential nutrients to the ecosystem.