Bio Vocab Chapters 1 And 2

Front 1

Food

Back 1

a substnce ontaining energy-rich organic compounds made by organisms and used as a source of energy and matter for life

Front 2

Ecology

Back 2

the study of living and nonliving components of the environment and of the interactions that affect biological species

Front 3

Biology

Back 3

the study of living organisms and life processes

Front 4

Producers

Back 4

an autotroph; any organism that produces its own food using matter and energy from the non-living world

Front 5

Consumers

Back 5

a heterotroph; an organism that feeds on other organisms or on their organic wastes

Front 6

Decomposers

Back 6

an organism that lives on decaying organic material from which it obtains energy and its own raw materials for life

Front 7

Community

Back 7

all the organisms that inhabit a particular area

Front 8

Microorganisms

Back 8

an organism too small to be seen with the unaided human eye

Front 9

food chain

Back 9

the transfer of food from one feeding level to another, beginning with producers

Front 10

food web

Back 10

food chains in an ecosystem taken collectively, showing partial overlapping and competition for many food organisms

Front 11

Chemical energy

Back 11

energy stored in the structure of molecules, particularly organic molecules

Front 12

Photosynthesis

Back 12

the process by which living cells that contain chlorophyll use light energy to make organic compounds from inorganic materials

Front 13

atoms

Back 13

the smallest particle of an element; in turn, an atom is made of smaller articles that do not separately have the properties of the element

Front 14

element

Back 14

a substance composed of atoms that are chemically identical- alike in their proton and electron numbers

Front 15

molecules

Back 15

a particle consisting of two or more atoms of the same or different elements chemically bonded together

Front 16

molecules

Back 16

a particle consisting of two or more atoms of the same or different elements chemically bonded together

Front 17

compound

Back 17

a substance formed by chemical bonds between atoms of two or more different elements

Front 18

biosphere

Back 18

the outer portion of the earth (air, water, and soil) where life is found

Front 19

hypothesis

Back 19

a statement suggesting an explanation for an observation or an answer to a scientific problem

Front 20

population

Back 20

a group of organisms of one species that live in the same place at the same time

Front 21

mortality

Back 21

death rate, measured as the proportion of deaths to total population over a given period; often expressed as number of deaths per 1,000 or 10,000 individuals

Front 22

birthrate

Back 22

the rate at which reproduction increases the population; often expressed as new individuals per 1,000 or 10,000 in the population

Front 23

immigration

Back 23

arrival of new individuals into a population; increases the size of a population

Front 24

emigration

Back 24

departure of individuals from a population; decreases the size of the population

Front 25

biotic

Back 25

living or recently living; a biotic factor is an organism or its remains in an ecosystem

Front 26

abiotic

Back 26

a physical or nonliving component of an ecosystem

Front 27

limiting factor

Back 27

an environmental condition such as food, temperature, water, or sunlight that restricts the types of organisms and population numbers that an environment can support

Front 28

resources

Back 28

in ecology, an environmental supply of one or more of an organism's requirements (light energy, food energy, water, oxygen or carbon dioxide, living space, protective cover, and so on); in a human society, a resource may be anything useful

Front 29

carrying capacity

Back 29

the maximum population size that can be supported by the available resources of a given area

Front 30

homeostasis

Back 30

a fundamental characteristic of living systems; maintenance of stability of numbers of individuals within a population (social); the tendency of an organism to maintain a stable, constant internal environment (psychological)

Front 31

dispersal

Back 31

(1) the spreading of organisms from a place of concentration; (2)the scattering o spores and seeds that promotes the spreading of nonmotile organisms