ECOLOGY TERMINOLOGY

•  Ecology is a branch of biology concerned with the study of the interactions of living organisms with each other and with their environment.
• An ecosystem is a community of organisms that interact with their environment.
• Biosphere is a region of the earth where life can exist.(atmosphere, hygrosphere, lithosphere)
• A habitat is a place where an organism lives.
• An abiotic factor is anything that is non-living and has an effect on living organisms in an ecosystem. The two main types are:

1. Climatic factors are weather conditions that have an effect on living organisms in an ecosystem.
2. Edaphic factors are anything relating to the soil or geology of land that have an effect on living organisms in an ecosystem.

• A biotic factor is anything that is living and has an effect on living organisms in an ecosystem. (e.g presence of predator, presence of pathogenic organisms).
• Pathogenic: capable of producing disease.
• A grazing food chain is a relationship of the sequence of predator-prey relationships in an ecosystem.
• A food web consists of two or more interconnected food chains.
• An ecological pyramid of numbers shows the numbers of organisms at each trophic level in a food chain. (May be upright, partially upright or inverted in shape.
• Niche refers to the functional role an organism plays in its habitat.
• A population is a group of organisms living in a habitat that belong to the same species.
• A community is a group of organisms living in a habitat that belong to many different species.
• Competition is the struggle between organisms for a resource that is in limited supply.

1. Contest competition is the direct fight between two organisms for a resource that is in short supply. (e.g. two stags fighting for a mate)
2. Scramble competition is the struggle amongst a number of organisms for a resource that is in short supply. Each organism gets a small share of the resource. (e.g. a pack of vultures competing for a portion of the kill made by a large predator)

• A resource is a stock or supply (such as food) that can be drawn on.
• Predation is the catching, killing and eating of another organism.
• Symbiosis is the biological relationship in which two species live in close proximity to each other and interact regularly in such a way as to benefit one or both of the organisms.
• Mutualism is when both of the organisms benefit from the presence of each other, e.g. N2-fixing bacteria that live in root nodules of legume plants (such as peas) assimilate NO3- from N2.
• Parasitism is where one organism, called the parasite, lives in or on another organism, called the host, and the host is harmed. (e.g. aphids are parasites of plants, athletes foot and mosquitoes)