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Abiotic factors
Nonliving environmental conditions such as temperature, light, pH, and moisture.
ATP
A small molecule that stores and releases energy for cell processes.
Biomass
Living material that contains stored chemical energy.
Biotic factors
Interactions with living organisms, such as food availability, predators, competitors, and symbiotic partners.
Competition
When organisms require the same limited resource and not all individuals can obtain enough to survive and reproduce.
Food chain
A simple, linear sequence showing how energy and nutrients pass from producers to consumers across trophic levels (e.g., producer → herbivore → carnivore → apex predator).
Food web
An interconnected network of multiple food chains that maps all feeding relationships in an ecosystem, showing species with multiple food sources and roles across trophic levels.
Habitat
The natural environment that provides the resources and conditions an organism needs to survive and reproduce.
Interspecific competition
Occurs between individuals of different species that rely on the same limited resource.
Intraspecific competition
Occurs between individuals of the same species.
Keystone species
A species with an unusually large influence on its ecosystem.
Nutrient cycle
The continuous movement of essential chemical elements through living organisms and the environment.
Parasite
An organism that lives on or inside a host, benefits from the host’s resources, and harms the host.
Pathogen
A biological agent that causes disease in a host organism.
Predator–prey relationship
A biological interaction in which one organism (the predator) captures and consumes another organism (the prey) as a food source.
Trophic cascade
A series of population changes across multiple trophic levels caused by a change in one species.
Trophic level
The position an organism occupies in a feeding sequence.
Vector
A living carrier that transfers a pathogen without being the primary host.