ECOLOGY

ORGANISM

• An individual living thing that can react to stimuli.
• Reproduce, grow, and maintain homeostasis.
• It can be a virus, bacterium, protist, fungus, plant or an animal.

PRODUCERS

• The first trophic level in a food chain
• it serves as a food source for consumers or for higher trophic levels

CONSUMERS

• An organism that generally obtains food by feeding on other organisms .
• A heterotroph

DECOMPOSERS

• An organism whose ecological function involves the recycling of nutrients.
• by performs the natural process of decomposition it feeds on dead or decaying organisms

HERBIVORES

• A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material

CARNIVORES

• Eats only meat

OMNIVORES

• Eats both meat and plants

FOOD CHAIN

• a series of organisms interrelated in their feeding habits
• the smallest being fed upon by a larger one, which in turn feeds a still larger one, etc.

FOOD WEB

• A food web is many food chains linked together
• shows a more accurate model of all possible feeding relationships of organisms in an ecosystem.

SPECIES

• a class of individuals having some common characteristics or qualities
• distinct sort or kind

POPULATION

• A group of organisms of one species that interbreed and live in the same place

COMMUNITY

• An ecological unit composed of a group of organisms or a population of different species occupying a particular area,
• usually interacting with each other and their environment.

ECOSYSTEM

• a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment.

PREDATOR

• any organism that exists by preying upon other organisms.

PREY

• the animal being hunted
• The organisms being eaten

ECOLOGICAL SUCESSION

• the process by which the structure of a biological community evolves over time.