Ecology Basics
The scientific study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment
What is Ecology?
An organism that makes its own food, usually using sunlight (like plants).
What is a producer?
A simple series of steps showing energy transfer by eating and being eaten.
What is a food chain?
All organisms of one species living in a particular area.
What is a population?
The field combining earth and life sciences to study human impacts and ecology.
What is environmental science?
The natural home or environment of an organism, including food and shelter
What is a habitat?
An organism that gets food by eating other organisms.
What is a consumer?
A complex network of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
Different populations living and interacting in the same area.
What is a community?
Grasslands in South Africa (example of a biome/habitat).
What are veldts?
An organism's role or function in its habitat, including relationships with others
What is a Niche?
A consumer that eats only plants.
What is a herbivore?
Each step or feeding level in a food chain or web.
What is a trophic level?
The root word meaning "one that eats"
What is "-vore"?
Energy flow decreases at higher trophic levels, often shown in a pyramid.
What is an ecological (or energy) pyramid?
All living organisms in an environment (as opposed to non-living parts)
What are biotic factors?
Organisms (like fungi or bacteria) that break down dead organisms and wastes.
What are decomposers?
Changes in populations at different trophic levels when top predators are added or removed.
What is a trophic cascade?
The gradual, predictable change in species making up a community over time.
What is ecological succession?
Cycles like water, oxygen, nitrogen, or phosphorus that move resources through ecosystems.
What are biogeochemical (or ecological) cycles?
Non-living components of an environment, such as water, soil, or temperature.
What are abiotic Factors?
Consumers that eat both plants and animals (humans often fit here).
What are omnivores?
A close, long-term relationship between two species where at least one benefits (e.g., mutualism, commensalism, parasitism).
What is symbiosis?
Environmental science studies the interactions in these systems made of living things and their surroundings.
What is an ecosystem?
Human activities can disrupt these, leading to issues like pollution or habitat loss (broad category).
What are ecosystems (or environmental balance)?