Download Top 58 Ecology Facts 1. A food chain is a series of events in which

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Top 58 Ecology Facts
1. A food chain is a series of events in which one organism eats another and obtains energy.
2. A food web is the pattern of overlapping food chains in an ecosystem. A food web contains at least 2 food
chains.
3. An ecosystem is a community of organisms that live in a particular area, along with their nonliving
surroundings.
4. A niche is the role an organism plays in its habitat, or how it makes a living.
5. A predator is the organism that does the killing in a predation interaction.
6. Prey is an organism that is killed and eaten by another organism.
7. A limiting factor is an environmental factor that prevents a population from increasing.
8. Carrying capacity is the largest population that an area can support.
9. A habitat is the specific environment that provides the things an organism needs to live, grow and reproduce.
10. A herbivore is an organism that eats only plants. Vegetarian humans are herbivores.
11. A carnivore is an organism that eats only animals (meat). Lions are carnivores.
12. An omnivore is an organism that eats both plants and animals. Most humans are omnivores.
13. A producer is an organism that can make its own food. Plants are producers.
14. A decomposer is an organism that breaks down chemicals from wastes and dead organisms, and returns
important materials to the soil and water.
15. A community is all the different populations that live together in an area.
16. A population is all the members of one species in a particular area.
17. Pollution is contamination of Earth’s land, water or air.
18. A species is a group of organisms that are physically similar and can mate with each other and produce
offspring that can also mate and reproduce.
19. An abiotic factor is a nonliving part of an organism’s habitat.
20. A biotic factor is a living part of an organism’s habitat.
21. A biome is a group of land ecosystems with similar climates and organisms.
22. Biodiversity is the number of different species in an area.
23. Competition is the struggle between organisms to survive as they attempt to use the same limited resource.
24. A consumer is an organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms.
25. Dispersal is the movement of organisms from one place to another.
26. Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with their environment.
27. An endangered species are species that are in danger of becoming extinct in the near future.
28. An energy pyramid is a diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one feeding level to
another in a food web.
29. Environmental science is the study of the natural processes that occur in the environment and how humans
affect them.
30. Extinction is the disappearance of all members of a species from Earth.
31. Habitat destruction is the loss of the natural habitat.
32. A heterotroph is an organism that cannot make its own food. Humans are heterotrophs. Heterotrophs have
mouths.
33. Immigration is moving into a population.
34. Migration is the regular, periodic journey of an animal from one place to another and back again for
feeding or reproduction.
35. A natural resource is anything in the environment that is used by people.
36. A nonrenewable resource is a natural resource that is not replaced in a useful time frame, generally more
than 100 years.
37. An organism is a living thing.
38. Population density is the number of individuals in an area of a specific size.
39. Native species the original organisms in an ecosystem.
40. Non-native species are any species of organisms that is not native to an ecosystem or have moved into
ecosystems because of human actions.
41. Invasive species are species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm
or harm to human health. All invasive species are non-native species.
42. A renewable resource is a resource that is either always available, or is naturally replaced in a relatively
short time (generally less than 100 years).
43. A scavenger is a carnivore that feeds on the bodies of dead organisms that they did not kill. Buzzards and
vultures are scavengers.
44. Selective cutting is the process of cutting down only some trees in an area.
45. A threatened species is a species that could become endangered in the near future.
46. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American environmentalist that studied the dangers of misusing
chemical pesticides.
47. Senator Nelson (1916 – 2005) was a US senator that advocated for the health of our planet and became the
founder of the first Earth Day, which occurs on April 22nd.
48. John Muir (1838-1914) was a naturalist that started the movement in the 1800’s for wilderness areas to be
preserved.
49. Acid rain results when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide released by factories and automobiles combine
with water vapor in the air.
50. Soil is a mixture of mineral and rock particles, the remains of dead organisms, water and air.
51. Climate is the average weather conditions of an area over time.
52. Habitat restoration is the process of taking action to bring a damaged habitat back to a healthy condition.
53. Conservation biology is the study of how to protect biodiversity.
54. Carrion is the dead meat that scavengers eat.
55. An adaptation is a special behavior or physical characteristic that helps an organism survive. If you don’t
adapt, you will die. An adaptation is what makes an organism unique such as a giraffe: its neck is its
adaptation.
56. A first-level consumer consumes producers.
57. A second-level consumer consumes first-level consumers.
58. A third-level consumer consumes second-level consumers. There is no fourth-level consumer.