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Definition
| The principal source of energy input to biological systems. |
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Term
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Definition
A chart showing the flow of energy (food) from one organism to the next starting with a producer. The arrows point to the organism that recieves the energy.
e.g. mahogany tree --> caterpillar --> song bird --> hawk. |
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Definition
| A network of interconnected food chains showing the energy flow through part of an ecosystem. |
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Definition
| An organism that makes its own organic nutrients, usually using energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis. |
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Definition
| An organism that gets its energy by feeding on other organisms. |
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| Herbivore (PLEASE pronounce the 'H'!) |
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Definition
| An animal that gets its energy by eating plants. |
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Definition
| An organism that gets its energy from dead or waste organic matter. |
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Definition
| A unit containing all of the organisms and their environment, interacting together, in a given area (e.g. decomposing log, or lake). |
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Definition
| The position of an organism in a food chain, food web or pyramid of biomass, numbers or enery. |
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Term
| How much energy is roughly lost between each trophic level? |
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Definition
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Term
| Why do food chains usually have less than 5 trophic levels? |
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Definition
| So much energy is lost to the environment between each trophic level that the more consumers there are, the more inefficient it becomes. |
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Term
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Definition
| Nitrogen in the air being converted to nitroogen that can be used by a plant with the help of nodules on some roots. |
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Definition
| The return on nitrogen to the soil after it has been used in a plant or animal. |
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Definition
| The return of nitrogen to the atmosphere. |
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Definition
| A group of organisms of one species, living in the same area at the same time. |
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Term
| Factors affecting the rate of population growth... |
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Definition
| Food supply, predation and disease. |
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Term
| Sigmoid population growth curve |
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Definition
| A graph showing the growth of a population over an amount of time with limited resources. |
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Term
| The lag phase on a sigmoid popultion growth curve |
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Definition
| The part of the sigmoid growth curve where the population is very gradually increasing. |
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Term
| The exponential (log) phase of the sigmid population growth curve |
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Definition
| The part of the sigmoig growth curve where there is a rapid increase in the growth of the population. |
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Term
| The stationary phase of the sigmoid population growth curve |
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Definition
| The part of the sigmoid growth curve where the population growth slows down because of a limiting factor. |
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Term
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Definition
| A factor that slows or even stops a population growth. |
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