Ecology 🐻

• Parasitism is a type of ecological interaction where one organism (parasite) benefits at the expense of another organism (host).
• An ecosystem is a system formed by a group of living things that interact with each other and their non-living surroundings
• A habitat is where an organism lives at a given time
• A community is all of the living organisms in an ecosystem
• A environment are all the factors in an organism's surroundings that affect the organism
• A population is all the individuals of one species that live in the one habitat
• Photosynthesis is the process in which plants (and some algae) produce their own food in the form of glucose
• photosynthesis equation

  
• Biotic is something living (or once living)
• Abiotic is something in a habitat that is never living
• Consumer/heterotroph is the name given to living things that can't photosynthesize
• Producer/autotroph is the name given to organisms that can photosynthesize
• A decomposer is organisms (eg fungi) that obtain their nutrients by breaking down the dead bodies of other organisms and return nutrients to the soil
• A detritivore is an animal which feeds on dead organic material, especially plant matter. Different to a decomposer because they eat the organic matter
• An adaptations are features that an organism has that help it to survive
• Endotherms are animals that generate their own heat from within their body
• Ectotherms are animals that have to get their heat from their environment
• A food chain is a representation of the flow of energy in an ecosystem 
• A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem
• A trophic level is a position in a food chain, a food web, or on ecological pyramid that is occupied by a group of organisms having a similar feeding mode
• A herbivore is an animal that eats plants
• A carnivore is an animal that eats meat
• An omnivore is an animal that eats both plants and meat
• Chemosysthesis is the process by which food is made by bacteria or other living things using chemicals as the energy source, typically in the absence of sunlight
• Predator is the species that sits at the top of the food web and doesn’t have any natural predators.
• Biodiversity (also called species diversity) considers both the number of species present and the relative abundance of the species
• Species richness refers to the number of species in an ecosystem regardless of the abundance
• The more diverse an ecosystem is, the greater its resilience to change
• Competition is when animals must compete for food and shelter, etc. Plants compete for water, light, and soil nutrients.
• Predation is when some animals hunt other animals for food
• Parasitism is a relationship where one organism lives on or in another organism (the host) and feeds off it
• Mutualism is a relationship where two organisms live closely together and BOTH benefit.
• Commensalism is one species benefits and the other is unaffected
• Adaptations are features that an organism has that help it to survive
• types of adaptations are structural, behavioural and functional.
• A structural adaptation is a body part that enables an organism to survive.
• Behavioural adaptations are actions, habits and/or behaviours that give animals a survival advantage
• functional adaptations are the features of the way an organism's body works - the internal functions inside its body
• firestick farming is a method of controlling vegitaion by burning land
• firestick burning is done to ecourage new growth plants and attracts animals for hunting