Mr. Williams’ Vocabulary Graphic Organizer

Unit 10: LIFE SCIENCE/ECOSYSTEM

COMMENSALISM
A relationship between two organisms in which one organism benefits and the other is not harmed or helped.
Explanation
Thesebirdslive nearcattlebecause when thecattlegraze, their cows’ movements stir up insects. Thebirdseat the insects and thecattleare unaffected. / Picture

(1) Ecology: A branch of science concerned with the relationships between living things and their environment. / (2) Community: a natural group such as of kinds of plants and animals that live together and depend on one another for various necessities of life such as food or shelter. / (3) Biotic factor: The living things in an ecosystem are calledbiotic factors. Living things include plants, animals, bacteria, fungi and more. / (4) Abiotic factor: The non-living parts of an ecosystem are calledabiotic factors. In an ecosystem someabiotic factorsare sunlight, temperature atmospheric gases water and soil.
(5) Population: The whole number of people or animals living in a certain place. / (6) Species: A group of closely related living things that are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. / (7) Ecosystem: All of the living things (plants, animals and organisms) in a given area, interacting with each other, and also with their non-living environments (weather, earth, sun, soil, climate, atmosphere). In anecosystem, each organism has its own niche or role to play. / (8) Estuary: An area where a freshwater river or stream meets the ocean.It’s a good place for living things to live and lay eggs/give birth.
(9) Habitat: The home of an animal or a plant.
Mosthabitatsinclude a community of animals and plants along with water, oxygen, soil or sand, and rocks. / (10) Niche: Part of the environment that a species fits in to, and to which it is adapted. How an organism makes a living in a place. The Florida Alligators niche is the Top Consumer or Tertiary Consumer in the Florida Wetland food web. / (11) Producer: Plants are calledproducers because they produce their own food by photosynthesis. / (12) Consumer: a living thing that must eat other organisms to obtain energy necessary for life.
(13) Decomposer: Fungi and bacteria play an important role in nature. They break down the unused dead material and turn them into nutrients in the soil, which plants use to grow. / (14) Carnivore: Animals that ONLY eat other animals are calledcarnivores. Sharks are fiercecarnivores. / (15) Omnivore: An animal that eats either other animals or plants. Some omnivores will hunt and eat their food, like carnivores, eating herbivoresand other omnivores. Some others are scavengersand will eat dead matter. Many will eat eggs from other animals. / (16) Herbivore: an animal that gets its energy from eating plants, and only plants
(17) Food Chain: Begin with plant-life, and end with animal-life. Some animals eat plants & some animals eat other animals. shows how each living thing getsfood, and how nutrients and energy are passed from creature to creature. / (18) Food Web: The feeding relationships of predator-prey
within an ecosystem that shows the transfer offoodenergy from its source in plants through herbivores to carnivores. / (19) Predator: an animal that lives by killing and eating other animals / (20) Prey: animal being hunted, caught, and eaten by another animal.
(21) Symbiosis: A close relationship between two different kinds of organisms, or living things. There are three basic types ofsymbioticrelationships: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. / (22) Mutualism: Mutualismisdefined as a relationship that benefits two living things. Like how a killer clown fish who lures the fish that prey upon it into the sea anemone so that the anemone can kill and eat it. / (23) Commensalism: A relationship between two organisms in which one organism benefits and the other is not harmed or helped. / (24) Parasitism: A relationship between two different living things where one living thing receives a benefit from the other by causing damage or harm to that living thing like a mosquito is to a human.
(25) Competition: A relationship in an ecosystem where two or more living things depend on the same resources and fight each other over that resource such as food, water, sexual mates or land/territory. / (26) Limiting Factor: A factor present in an environment that limits the size of the population of organisms in an ecosystem. The availability of food, water, shelter, mates or predation are examples of limiting factors to a populations growth. / (27) Native Species: A species that was originally a part of an ecosystem like the Florida Alligator in the Florida Everglades Wetlands. / (28) Introduced Species: A species that was NOT originally a part of an ecosystem. The Florida Alligator in the Florida Everglades Wetlands is native to Florida, but the Burmese Python in the Everglades is not a native species to Florida.
(29) Wetland: Wetlandsare areas where the land does not drain well. The ground in awetlandis saturated, or full of water. Often the ground is covered with shallow water.Wetlandsare usually classified as swamps, marshes, or bogs. / (30) Watershed:
Any area of land that water flows across or through. Water in awatershedtrickles and flows toward a common body of water, such as a stream, river, lake or coast. / (31) Coral Reef: A group of tiny organisms calledcoralpolyps dies. Today, billions of polyps later, that limestone floor has grown to become a coral reef like the Great Barrier Reef.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

# 1 EQ: How are the biotic & abiotic factors of an ecosystem interrelated?

#2 EQ: What are the roles & relationships within a food web?

# 3 EQ: What types of wetland and upland ecosystems are at Starkey Park Ranch?

# 4 EQ: What communities of plants & animals do these ecosystems support?

# 5 EQ: What are the roles & relationships of living things within wetlands & uplands?

# 6 EQ: What are limiting factors and how do they affect individual species and populations within a community?

# 7 EQ: What effects can human and natural factors in one area of a watershed have on the quantity and quality of surface water and groundwater on the rest of the watershed?

# 8 EQ: How can water quality testing be used to determine the health of a wetland ecosystem?