communities and competition

• Organisms in ecology have various relationships with other organisms, predators, plants, and the environment
• Changes in one part of an ecosystem can impact all other parts
• Special terms in ecology:

  • Habitat: the place where an organism lives
  • Population: all organisms of a particular species in a habitat
  • Community: all populations of different species in a habitat
  • Biotic factors: living factors like food availability and predators
  • Abiotic factors: non-living factors like temperature and soil pH
• Ecosystem:

  • Interaction of a community of living organisms with the non-living parts of their environment
• Competition is a key process in ecosystems where organisms compete for limited resources like space, food, water, and mates
• Interdependence:

  • All species depend on each other in some way
  • Demonstrated through food webs showing feeding relationships within a community
• Changes in one species can have cascading effects on other species in the ecosystem