1. WEATHER: Is the condition of Earth’s atmosphere at a
particular time and place.
CLIMATE: Is the average condition of temperature and
precipitation in a region over long periods.
MICROCLIMATES: any climatic condition in a relatively
small area, within a few meters or less above and below
the Earth’s surface and within canopies of vegetation.
GREEN HOUSE EFFECT: Is the trapping of heat by gases in
the atmosphere.
TOLERANCE: A range of conditions under which it can
grow and reproduce.
HABITAT: The place where species live.
2. NICHE: Consists of all the physical and biological
conditions in which a species lives and the way the species
obtains what it need to survive and reproduce.
RESOURCE: Is any necessity of life, such as water, nutrients,
light, food, or space.
COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE: This principle states
that no two species can occupy exactly the same niche in
exactly the same habitat at the same time.
PREDATION: Occurs when one organism (the predator)
captures and eat another (the prey).
HERBIVORY: Is an interaction that occurs when an animal
(the herbivore) feeds on producers (such as plants).
3. KEYSTONE SPECIES: Changes in the population of a single
species.
SYMBIOSIS: Occurs when two species live closely together
in one of three ways: mutualism, commensalism, or
parasitism.
MUTUALISM: Both species benefit from the relationship.
PARASITISM: One species benefits by living in or on the
other and the other is harmed.
COMMENSALISM: One species benefits and the other in
neither helped nor harmed.
CANOPY: In tropical rain forest, the tops of tall trees form
a covering.
4. UNDERSTORY: Shorter trees and vines form another layer.
DECIDIOUS: Vegetation composed primarily of broad-
leaved trees that shed all their leaves during one season.
CONIFEROUS: Trees produce seed-bearing cones and
most have waxy needles.
HUMUS: Form from decaying leaves and makes soil fertile.
TAIGA: Are dense forests of coniferous evergreens.
PERMAFROST: A layer of permanently frozen subsoil.
TUNDRA: A level or rolling treeless plain that is
characteristic of arctic and subarctic regions, consists of
black mucky soil with a permanently frozen subsoil, and
5. has a dominant vegetation of mosses, lichens, herbs, and
dwarf shrubs.
PHOTIC ZONE: Is the sunlit upper layer of water where
photosynthesis can occur.
APHOTIC ZONE: Is the dark lower layer where
photosynthesis cannot occur.
BENTHOS: The organisms that live on the floor of a body
of water.
WETLANDS: Occur where water meets land.
PLANKTON: marine and freshwater organisms that,
because they are non-motile or too small or weak to swim
against the current, exist in a drifting state.
