Weekly Vocabulary 10/26/15 Ecology Biosphere Environment Abiotic Biotic Species Diversity Population Community Ecosystem Biome Observation Experimentation Modeling

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Ecology The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

Biosphere This is the global sum total of all the Earth’s ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life here on Earth, a closed system, and largely self-regulating.

Environment The biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and includes all the factors that have an influence in their survival and development.

Abiotic Not associated with or derived from living organisms. These factors in an environment include such as sunlight temperature, wind patterns and precipitation.

Biotic Those factors relating to, or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations. Factors include such thing as organic matter, and dead wood,

Species A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. 

Diversity The quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.

Population The whole number of interbreeding individuals occupying any given area, (such as a meadow), and continually being modified by increases (births and immigrations) and losses (deaths and emigrations).

Community An interacting group of various species in a common location, such as, a forest of trees, which is inhabited by various animals, that live in its branches and undergrowth of plants, which are rooted in soil containing bacteria and fungi.

ecosystem A community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system.

BIome The largest geographic biotic unit, a major community of plants and animals with similar life forms and environmental conditions. It includes various communities and is named for the dominant type of vegetation, such as grassland or coniferous forest.

observing This is either an activity of a living being (such as a human), which senses and assimilates the knowledge of a phenomenon, or the recording of data using various scientific instruments.

experimenting This is a useful method of investigating particular types of research questions or solving particular types of problems.

modeling An experiment that is carried out using a representation, often mathematical, of a process, concept or operation of a system, often implemented by a computer program.