Science - Ecology

Front 1

Niche

Back 1

"How an organism makes a living"

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Adaptation

Back 2

Helps an organisms survival

-Behavioral

-Structural

-Functional/Physiological

Front 3

Behavioral Adaptation

Back 3

Actions an organism takes to enhance its survival.

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StructuralAdaptation

Back 4

Characteristic parts or features of an organism which increases survival.

Front 5

Functional/PhysiologicalAdaptation

Back 5

Biological processes which occur within an organism to aid its survival.

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Communities

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Living things (organisms) live in communities, e.g native bush

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Producers

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Plants are called producers because they use light energy to produce organic substances from the material they take in from their physical surroundings, i.e photosynthesis

Provide the foundation for the community

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Consumers

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The animals that eat or consume other living things therefore they are called consumers. An organism which feeds on plants is called a first order consumer. An organism which feeds on 1st order consumers is a 2nd order consumer, and so on.

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Different Types of Consumers

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Carnivores - Only eat other animals

Herbivores - Only eat plants

Omnivores - Eat both plants and animals

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Decomposers

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These are consumers that break down, or "decompose" dead organisms.

They all recycle key elements in the environments and make those elements available to other organisms, such as consumers and producers

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Food Chains

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A community contains many food chains which link up to form a food web.

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Trophic Levels

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Each step in the food chain is called a trophic level, energy flows from the lowest trophic level to the highest trophic level. Energy enters as light and exits as heat. The arrow shows the direction of matter and energy flow.

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Scavenger

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An organism that feeds on dead plant material or refuse.

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Parasite

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An organism which lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.

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Photosynthesis

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Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and some bacteria use the energy from sunlight to produce glucose from carbon dioxide and water.

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Natural Selection

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The process by which organisms better adapted to their environment are selected for by nature in a consistent, orderly and non-random way.

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Human Effects on the Carbon Cycle

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The two main human impacts on the carbon cycle are: 1. Burning of fossil fuels and 2. Land use and land coverage.