A2 Biology Key Words - Ecology

Abundance – The number of individuals in a given space.

Bias – This will invalidate any data collected

Biological Control – The use of other living organisms to control pests (e.g ladybirds to kill flys)

Biomass – A measure of the amount of energy in a trophic level based on the mass of the organism in an ecosystem. Mass of living material.

Community – Is all the different organisms living and interacting in a particular habitat.

Competition – When individuals need to share resources (e.g light, food) insufficient to meet all their demands

Consumer – An organism that eats/consumes another.

Decomposer – These break producers and consumers down releasing and recycling nutrients (e.g bacteria, fungi, earthworm)

Detritivore – An organism such as an earthworm…