Ecology

• An ecosystem is the group of organisms that interact with each other and their environment
• Ecology is the study of the interaction between living organisms and their environment.
• The biosphere is the part of Earth that in which life can exist.
• A habitat is the place where an organism lives.
• Abiotic factors are non-living factors of the environment (Examples include light intensity, temperature, soil moisture, and soil pH)
• Biotic factors are living components of the environment (Examples include predators, prey, competitors, parasites, and mutualists).
• Edaphic factors relate to the soil.
• A niche is the functional role of an organism in an ecosystem or habitat.
• Fauna are animals. Flora are plants.
• A community refers to the populations of different species in an area.
• Population is all the members of the same species in an area.
• A food chain shows the flow or transfer of energy from one organism to the next. The order would usually consist of: Producers -> Primary consumer -> Secondary consumer -> Tertiary consumer.
• A tropic level is a feeding position in a food chain.
• A limitation of the food chain and why it is reduced to 4 stages, is because over 90% of energy in each trophic level is not passed on to the next trophic level and lost as heat energy. This means that the amount of energy available to the top consumer is relatively low.
• The pyramid of numbers represents the number of individuals at each trophic level.
• An organism that only eats plants is called a Herbivore.
• An organism that only eats animals is called a Carnivore.
• An organism that eats both plants and animals is called an Omnivore.
• A food web consists of two or more interlinked food chains.
• Symbiosis is a close relationship between two organisms in which at least one of them benefits from.
• In parasitism, one organism benefits, while the other is harmed.
• A qualitative survey in ecology describes and observes features without using numbers, while a quantitative survey involves counting or measuring to gather numerical data for analysis.