Across
- 7. an ecosystem's ability to absorb disturbances, like natural disasters or climate change, and recover to maintain its essential structure and functions, such as providing clean air, water, and food
- 8. the slow process where pioneer species like lichens and mosses colonize a new, barren habitat, such as bare rock or newly formed land, and gradually transform it into soil, paving the way for a more diverse and complex ecosystem to develop over hundreds or thousands of years
- 9. a hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food
- 15. the doctrine that mutual dependence is necessary to social well-being
- 17. a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains
- 18. a phenomenon where a quantity increases at a rate directly proportional to its current size
- 20. interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both
- 23. the regrowth of an established ecosystem after a disturbance, such as a wildfire or deforestation, where soil and some biological remnants (like seeds and roots) remain intact, allowing for faster recovery compared to primary succession which starts on bare rock
- 24. all the inhabitants of a particular town, area, or country
- 25. an organism deriving its nutritional requirements from complex organic substances
- 26. a person or thing that eats or uses something
Down
- 1. environmental influences, often abiotic (non-living) like natural disasters (storms, floods, earthquakes), extreme weather, and pollution, that limit the size of a population regardless of the population's density
- 2. a population where individuals are spaced out in a roughly equal, regular pattern across an area, typically due to territoriality or competition for a limited resource like water or light
- 3. a person, company, or country that makes, grows, or supplies goods or commodities for sale
- 4. exponential population growth in an idealized environment with unlimited resources, where the population size increases at an accelerating rate over time
- 5. the preying of one animal on others
- 6. the practice of living as a parasite in or on another organism
- 10. an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material
- 11. describes the logistic growth of a population in a resource-limited environment
- 12. the maximum population of a species that a particular environment can sustain indefinitely, based on available resources like food, water, and space
- 13. an association between two organisms in which one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm
- 14. the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings
- 16. the interaction where two or more organisms vie for the same limited resources, such as food, water, light, or space, which negatively impacts the organisms involved
- 19. an organism that is able to form nutritional organic substances from simple inorganic substances such as carbon dioxide
- 21. an organism's feeding position within a food chain or food web, indicating the flow of energy through an ecosystem
- 22. an animal that feeds on plants