Chapter 4: Ecosystems

Front 1

Biological Production

Back 1

The capture of usable energy from the environment to produce organic compounds in which that energy is stored.

Front 2

Community-Level Interactions

Back 2

When the interaction between two species leads to changes in the presence or absence of other species or in a large change in abundance of other species, then a community effect is said to have occurred.

Front 3

Competition

Back 3

The situation that exists when different individuals, populations, or species compete for the same resource(s) and the presence of one has a detrimental effect on the other.

Hint 3

Sheep and Cows eating grass in the same field are competitors.

Front 4

Competitive Exclusion Principle

Back 4

The idea that two populations of different species with exactly the same requirements cannot persist indefinitely in the same habitat- one will always win out and the other will become extinct.

Front 5

Ecological Community

Back 5

(1) A conceptual or functional meaning: a set of interacting species that occur in the same place (sometimes extending to mean a set that interacts in a way to sustain life.)

(2) An operational meaning: a set of species found in an area, whether or not they are interacting

Front 6

Ecological Niche

Back 6

The general concept is that the niche is a species' "profession."

Used to refer to a set of environmental conditions within which a species is able to persist.

Front 7

Ecosystem

Back 7

An ecological community and its local, non biological community. The minimum system that includes and sustains life. Must include at least an autotroph, a decomposer, a liquid medium, a source and sink of energy, and all the chemical elements required by the autotroph and the decomposer.

Front 8

Energy Flow

Back 8

The movement of energy through an ecosystem from the external environment through a series of organisms and back to the external environment.

Fundamental process common to all ecosystems.

Front 9

Food Web

Back 9

A network of who feeds on whom or a diagram showing who feeds on whom. It is synonymous with food chain.

Front 10

Habitat

Back 10

Where an individual, population, or species exists or can exist.

Front 11

Keystone Species

Back 11

A species that has a large effect on its community or ecosystem so that its removal or addition to the community leads to major changes in the abundances of many or all other species.

Front 12

Parasitism

Back 12

An interaction between species that is beneficial to one and generally harmful to the other.

Front 13

Predation-Parasitism

Back 13

Interaction between individuals of two species in which the outcome benefits one and is detrimental to the other.

Front 14

Symbiosis

Back 14

An interaction between individuals of two different species that benefits both.

Front 15

Symbionts

Back 15

Each partner in symbiosis.

Front 16

Trophic Level

Back 16

In a ecological community, all the organisms that are the same number of food-chain steps from the primary source of energy.