Ecology Introduction: Interactions and Organization

Ecology is the study of interactions between organisms and the environment.

Competition occurs when two or more species share a abundant resource.

Character displacement occurs when the species compete for the same resource.

A species is a group of organisms that live in the same area.

A guild is a group of species that exploit a resource in a different way.

Species with exactly the same niche can co-occur in the same environment.

A biome is a collection of all organisms that live in a particular place together with their nonliving environment.

Biotic factors include temperature and precipitation.

Predation is an interaction where one species, the predator, kills and eats the other, the prey.

The habitat of an organism provides it with food, water, shelter, and space.

Matter flows through ecosystems, while energy cycles within them.

Aposematic coloration makes prey difficult to spot.

In Batesian mimicry, two or more unpalatable species resemble each other.

Keystone species are always highly abundant in a community.

An ecosystem consists only of all the living organisms in a community.

An ecosystem consists of only living organisms.

Sea otters are an example of a species with a large impact on the structure of entire communities.

Ecosystems can only range from a small area such as a lake or forest.

Autotrophs convert light energy to chemical energy during photosynthesis

Evaporation is the process of becoming a liquid from a gas.

Herbivores are animals that eat other animals

Autotrophs capture energy from sunlight and use that energy to produce food.

Runoff is the process by which water enters the soil.

Energy flows through an ecosystem entering as heat and exiting as light

A niche is the full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives.

Plants use CO2 during photosynthesis and release O2 into the atmosphere as a waste product.

Decomposers feed on dead organic matter

Transpiration is the process of water falling to the earth as snow, sleet, hail, or rain.

Trophic efficiency is usually 100%

Net primary production is the total primary production in an ecosystem