BIODIVERSITY & CONSERVATION
The variety of life, including genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity.
What is biodiversity?
The role of an organism in its ecosystem, including how it uses resources.
What is an ecological niche?
An interaction where both species benefit.
What is mutualism?
An organism that produces organic compounds from inorganic materials.
What is an autotroph?
A reservoir that absorbs more carbon than it releases.
What is a carbon sink?
The number of different species found in an ecosystem.
What is species richness?
The maximum population size an environment supports over time.
What is carrying capacity?
An interaction where one organism benefits while the other is harmed.
What is parasitism?
An organism that obtains nutrients by consuming other organisms or organic matter.
What is a heterotroph?
The loss of water vapor from plant leaves, mainly through stomata.
What is transpiration?
Conservation of organisms within their natural habitat.
What is in situ conservation?
Population growth producing a J-shaped curve when resources are abundant.
What is exponential growth?
Competition between organisms belonging to the same species.
What is intraspecific competition?
The total mass of living material within an area or trophic level.
What is biomass?
Nutrient enrichment of water that promotes excessive algal growth and often reduces dissolved oxygen.
What is eutrophication?
Conservation outside an organism's natural habitat, such as seed banks and zoos.
What is ex situ conservation?
The principle stating that two species occupying the same niche cannot coexist indefinitely.
What is the competitive exclusion principle?
Competition between organisms belonging to different species.
What is interspecific competition?
Organisms such as fungi that digest dead organic matter externally and absorb the nutrients.
What are saprotrophs?
The increasing concentration of a persistent substance as you move up trophic levels.
What is biomagnification?
A conservation strategy that restores species and natural ecological processes to an ecosystem.
What is rewilding?
The portion of a species' potential niche it occupies after competition and other biotic interactions.
What is the realized niche?
A species whose removal produces major changes in the structure of its ecosystem.
What is a keystone species?
The production of organic matter by autotrophs, usually through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis.
What is primary production?
A reinforcing process where an initial environmental change causes effects that increase the original change.
What is a positive feedback cycle?