Ecosystems

• habitat - the place where an organism lives
• population - all the organisms of one species in a habitat
• community - populations of different species in one habitat make up a community
• ecosystem - a community plus all the abiotic conditions in the area which it lives. they can be small or large
• abiotic - the non living features of an ecosystem such as temperature, light, soil, water
• biotic - the living features of the ecosystem such as predators
• niche - the role of a species within its habitat
• adaptation - a feature that members of a species have that increases their chance of survival and reproduction
• adaptations can be physiological, behavioural or atatomical
• population size - the total number of organisms of one species in habitat
• carrying capacity - the maximum stable population size of a species that an ecosystem can support
• interspecific competition - when organisms of different species compete for the same resources
• intraspecific competition - competition between members of the same species for resources, food, mates, territory
• predation - the feeding of one organism on another organism for food