Beverly Troxel's Mind Map Vocab Project

1. Biotic and Abiotic factors

1.1. Biotic factors- The living parts of an ecosystem.

1.2. Abiotic factors- The nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

2. Biodiversity

2.1. Biodiversity- The variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth; it is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems.

2.2. Hot spots

2.3. Ecological succession- A process in which the communities of an ecosystem change over time.

2.4. Primary succession- Begins in a new place without any soil.

2.5. Secondary succession- Begins in a new place that already has soil and was once the home of living organisms.

2.6. Pioneer species- The first species to move into an ecosystem.

2.7. Climax community- A type of community that is in equilibrium and with little or no change in species in the following years.

3. Limiting factors

3.1. Limiting factors- Biotic and Abiotic factors that prevent the continuous growth of a population.

3.2. Carrying capacity- The number of individuals of a species that an ecosystem can support.

4. Population

4.1. Population growth- Increase in the number of people who inhabit a territory or state.

4.2. Industrial Revolution

4.3. Exponential growth

4.4. Sustainability- The capacity to endure; in ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time.

4.5. Logistic growth- Growth rates regulated by internal and external factors that establish equilibrium with environmental resources.

4.6. J-curve

4.7. S-curve

4.8. Population growth rate- The change in population over time.

5. Food webs

5.1. Organism

5.2. Population

5.3. Community- All the speices who inhabit an area, region or country.

5.4. Ecosystem-Organisms and their enviroment.

5.5. Biome

5.6. Biosphere- Planet Earth and its life.

5.7. Food chain

5.8. Food web

5.9. Producer-The organisms that produce their own energy from the sun.

5.10. Primary consumer

5.11. Secondary consumer- The organisms that get their energy by eating primary consumers.

5.12. Tertiary consumer-The organisms that get their energy by eating consumers.

5.13. Trophic levels- Each step in the transfer of energy through an ecosystem.

5.14. Rainforest

5.15. Temperate deciduous forest- A biome found in the Eastern and Western United States which consists of trees that lose their leaves every year.

5.16. Coniferous forest

5.17. Desert

5.18. Tundra-Is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons.

5.19. Savannah- A grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced.

5.20. Freshwater biome

5.21. Marine biome

6. Water pollution

6.1. Aquifer

6.2. Water pollution- Contamination of water, especially surface water, by sewage effluent, fertilizer runoff, industrial chemical discharge, etc.

6.3. Point source pollution- Pipes dumping toxic industrial waste into a river.

6.4. Non-point source pollution- A large amount of water pollution not coming from a single point but from many different sources.