Ecology Terms
Ecology studies how living things interact with each other and with their surroundings. These terms cover populations, food webs and trophic levels, partnerships between species, the cycling of carbon and nitrogen, and threats to biodiversity.
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- BiodiversityEcologyBiodiversity is the variety of life in a place or on Earth as a whole, from genetic differences within species to the range of species and ecosystems.
- BiomeEcologyA biome is a large region of Earth defined by its climate and its typical plants and animals, such as tundra, desert or tropical rainforest.
- BioremediationBiotechnologyBioremediation is the use of living organisms, mostly microbes and sometimes plants, to break down or remove pollutants from soil, water or air.
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- Carbon cycleEcologyThe carbon cycle is the movement of carbon among the air, oceans, living things, soils and rocks through processes like photosynthesis and respiration.
- Carrying capacityEcologyCarrying capacity is the largest population of a species that an environment can sustain over time with the food, water and space available.
- CoevolutionEvolutionCoevolution is the process in which two or more species that interact closely each drive evolutionary change in the other over many generations.
- CompetitionEcologyIn ecology, competition is an interaction in which organisms needing the same scarce resource, such as food, light or space, reduce each other's success.
- Convergent evolutionEvolutionConvergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar traits in unrelated lineages that face similar environmental pressures.
- Coral bleachingMarine BiologyCoral bleaching is the paling of stressed corals as they lose the tiny symbiotic algae inside their tissue, most often because the water is too warm.
- Coral reefMarine BiologyA coral reef is an underwater ridge built over centuries from the limestone skeletons of colonial coral animals, home to some of Earth's richest sea life.
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- Ecological nicheEcologyAn ecological niche is a species' role in its community: the conditions it tolerates, the resources it uses and how it interacts with other species.
- Ecological successionEcologyEcological succession is the gradual, fairly predictable change in the species that make up a community over time, as on bare rock or after a fire.
- EcosystemEcologyAn ecosystem is a community of living organisms together with the nonliving environment they interact with, linked by energy flow and nutrient cycling.
- EstuaryMarine BiologyAn estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water where river water meets and mixes with seawater, so that the water there is brackish.
- EutrophicationEcologyEutrophication is the over-enrichment of a lake, river or coastal sea with nutrients, fueling algal blooms that later decay and use up the water's oxygen.
- ExtinctionPaleontologyExtinction is the permanent loss of a species, which happens when the last living individual of that species dies.
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- FitnessEvolutionIn evolution, fitness is an organism's success at surviving and reproducing, measured by its genetic contribution to the next generation.
- Food chainEcologyA food chain is a single line of feeding links in an ecosystem, tracing one path that energy and nutrients take from a producer up to a top predator.
- Food webEcologyA food web is the network of interconnected food chains in an ecosystem, showing the many feeding links through which energy and nutrients pass.
- FungusMycologyA fungus is a eukaryote, such as a yeast, mold or mushroom, that has chitin in its cell walls and feeds by absorbing nutrients from its surroundings.
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- Mass extinctionPaleontologyA mass extinction is an event in which a large share of Earth's species, often three-quarters or more, dies out in a geologically short time.
- MutualismEcologyMutualism is a relationship between two species in which both partners benefit, such as flowering plants and the insects that pollinate them.
- MycorrhizaMycologyA mycorrhiza is a mutually beneficial partnership between a fungus and plant roots, trading water and soil minerals for sugars made by the plant.
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- ParasiteParasitologyA parasite is a living thing that makes its home on or inside a host organism and feeds from it, usually causing the host harm.
- PhytoplanktonMarine BiologyPhytoplankton are microscopic photosynthetic organisms that drift near the surface of oceans and lakes and form the base of most aquatic food webs.
- PlanktonMarine BiologyPlankton are organisms that drift in oceans, lakes and rivers because they cannot swim against currents, from microscopic algae to large jellyfish.
- PollinationBotanyPollination is the delivery of pollen to the female reproductive parts of a seed plant, the step that makes fertilization and seed formation possible.
- PopulationEcologyIn ecology, a population is all the individuals of one species that live in the same area at the same time and can breed with one another.
- PredationEcologyPredation is an interaction between species in which one organism, the predator, catches, kills and eats another living organism, its prey.
- Primary producerEcologyA primary producer is an organism that makes its own food from inorganic substances, using light or chemical energy, and so forms the base of a food chain.
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- SpeciesEvolutionIn biology, a species is a set of populations whose members can interbreed in nature and produce fertile offspring, isolated from other such sets.
- SymbiosisEcologySymbiosis is a close, long-lasting relationship between two different species that may benefit both, benefit one, or benefit one at the other's expense.
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- TranspirationBotanyTranspiration is the escape of water vapor from a plant, mostly through open stomata in its leaves, which pulls more water up through the xylem.
- Trophic levelEcologyA trophic level is a feeding position in a food chain, such as producer, herbivore or carnivore, defined by how an organism obtains its energy.
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