Terms in Ecology

Terms in Ecology

Terms in Ecology

Ecosystem: A functional self- supporting system that includes organisms in a natural community and their environment.

Habitat: A specific place or natural conditions in which a plant or animal lives.

Coastal: Relating to the coast, on or near the coast as a coastal town, a coastal breeze.

Niche: The ecological niche describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors and how its turn alters those same factors.

Estuary: The tidal mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the streams.

Trophic level: Trophic level is the position of an organism within a food web.
The Greek word "trephin" means nourish, thus the nourishing level.

Food Chain: Food chain are the linkage of who feeds on whom. Energy, chemical elements and some compounds are transferred from creature to creatures along food chain.

Food web: Food web is the complex linkage of an inter - relationship among organisms in which energy is transferred from one organism to another.
Each organism consumes the proceeding one and in turn is eaten by the next higher sequence.

Q₁₀ value: The change in enzyme activity caused by a 10 degree Celsius rise is known as 10 temperature quotient or Q₁₀ value.

COD (Chemical oxygen demand): The amount of oxygen demand to oxidize completely organic matter with dichromate or permanganate in a water sample.

BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand): The amount of dissolved oxygen to oxidize organic matter needed by microorganisms in a sample at certain temperature over a specific time period.

Water activity: The amount of water actually available for microbial use is called water activity.
Water potential is related to water activity.

SOD (Superoxide Dismutase): SOD is a bacterial enzyme that protects cell from toxic forms of oxygen for example superoxide anion.

Carnivores: They are meat eaters, feed on herbivores make up the third trophic level.

Decomposers: Decomposers feed on organic matter. They are the highest trophic level.

Terms in Ecology

Written By

Sadia Akhtar
Student of Department of Microbiology
Jagannath University.
Email- sadiabd810@yahoo.com

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