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Ecology Glossary
1. Organism – any living thing
2. Individual – one single organism
3. Population – all of the individuals of one kind in a specified area at one time
4. Community – all the interacting populations in a specified area
5. Ecosystem – a system of interacting organisms and nonliving factors in a specified area
6. Biotic – living organisms and products of organisms
7. Abiotic - nonliving
8. Aquatic – of the water
9. Terrestrial – of the land
10. Producer – an organism that is able to produce its own food through photosynthesis
11. Consumer – an organism that eats other organisms
12. Decomposer – an organism that consumes parts of dead organisms and transfers all
the biomass into simple chemicals
13. Carnivore – Consumers that eat only animals
14. Herbivore – Consumers that eat only plants
15. Omnivore – Consumers that eat both plants and animals
16. Scavenger – Consumers that feed on the bodies of dead organisms
17. Food Chain – A series of events in which one organism eats another and obtains
energy
18. Food Web – The many overlapping food chains in an ecosystem.
19. Energy Pyramid – A diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one
feeding level to another in a food web
20. Photosynthesis – The process by which producers make energy-rich molecules (food)
from water and carbon dioxide in the presence of light
21. Trophic Levels – the level in an energy pyramid through which energy flows
22. Limiting Factor – An environmental factor that prevents a population from increasing.
23. Carrying Capacity - The largest population that an area can support.
24. Adaptation – any trait of an organism that increases its chances of surviving and
reproducing.
25. Feature – Any general structure, characteristic, or behavior of an organism. Examples:
wings, fur, color, migration.
26. Trait – The specific expression of a feature in an individual. Examples: wing length,
density of fur, intensity of the color, timing of migration.
27. Variation – Several traits for the same feature in a population. Example: the same
feature (color in a walkingstick) but the color varies from green to brown.
28. Inherited Trait – a characteristic that is passed down from parents to offspring through
genes. Example: blue eyes.
29. Acquired Trait – characteristics that are not passed down but instead "acquired" after
birth. Example of this is: scars, pierced ears, the length of your hair, the loss of a limb.
30. Natural selection – Process by which individuals that are better adapted to the
environment are more likely to survive and reproduce than others.
31. Niche – An organism’s particular role in an ecosystem, or how it makes its living.
32. Competition – The struggle between organisms for the limited resources in a habitat.
33. Predation – An interaction in which one organism kills and eats another.
34. Symbiosis – A close relationship between species that benefits at least one of the
species.
35. Mutualism – A relationship between two species in which both species benefit.
36. Commensalism – A relationship between two species in which one species benefits
and the other is neither helped nor harmed.
37. Parasitism – A relationship which one organism lives on or inside another and harms
it.
38. Host – The organism that a parasite lives in or on in parasitism.
39. Parasite – The organism that benefits by living on or in a host in parasitism.