Terms to learn:
Jargon buster
Preparing for marine
ecology
Accuracy
How close a measurement is to its true value
Adaptation
Organisms develop features to become adapted to their surrounding environment. This allows
them to live in a certain habitat
Annelid
Invertebrate with a round, worm-like body in segments
Bias
When results are not valid because of a fault in the experimental design or fieldwork e.g. using
a temperature probe which is broken
Biomass
All the biological material in an organism without its water
Carnivores
An animal that eats other animals
Characteristics
The features plants or animals have to adapt to their surrounding environment
Classification
Grouping together organisms with similar features
Climate change
The phenomenon by which the Earth is gradually heating up. It is more accurately referred to
as climate change rather than global warming because scientists still debate whether
increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other ‘green house gases’ in the atmosphere
will have a heating or cooling effect on the Earth. Learn more about this in Module E):
protecting our marine future: what can we do? Also available from the Inspiring Seas website
Cnidarian
Invertebrates with thin, sack-like bodies
Community
All the organisms living in the same habitat
Competition
The fight for resources that are in limited supply by plants and animals in a habitat. This can be
within the same population (the same species) or the same community (between different
species)
Conservation
Protecting the environment, whilst still allowing for its use. Gear restrictions on fishing vessels
are a good example of a conservation measure, as fishing gears that are destructive to marine
habitats for example would be banned
Continuous variation
Differences in one feature that can change gradually and have a range of values e.g. limpet
shell height. Continuous variables always have numerical values
Crustacean
Arthropod with chalky shell and jointed legs
Darwin theory
The theory that, genetically speaking, the fittest organisms will survive i.e. those that are best
adapted to living in their environment. They will successfully breed and pass on their genes to
the next generation
Dependent variable
The variable that you measure
Discontinuous variation
Differences in one feature that only have a few options.
Discontinuous or discrete variables are described by labels e.g.
the colours of seaweeds on a rocky shore might be described
using the colours green, red and brown
Echinoderm
Invertebrate with body usually divided into five parts
Ecology
The study of how living things interact with one another and their environment
Ecosystem
Both the living organisms in an area and the environmental factors which affect them
Environment
An organism’s surroundings
Environmental factor
Things which change an organism. For example,
wave crash may affect where rocky shore organisms
are able to settle
Environmental Variation
Change(s) caused in an organism by environmental factors
Factor
An effect which cannot be controlled but can be measured e.g. the effects of the temperature
in rock pools on the diversity of organisms that live there
Fair test
An investigation where only the independent variable has been allowed to affect the dependent
variable
Feature
Characteristics organisms may have to surviving in their environment.
Limpets have a strong, muscular foot for example to stick to rocks on
the rocky shore
Food chain
Show energy transfer between organisms in a community
Food web
Show feeding relationships between organisms in a community
Habitat
The place where an organism lives
Herbivores
An animal that eats only plants
Independent variable
The variable you change to see what effect this has on what you are studying e.g. shore height
as the independent variable and limpet shell shape as the dependent variable
Invertebrates
Animals that do not have a backbone
Key
Branching and statement keys. Both are used to find out what something is from a list of
multiple choice statements
Kingdom
The largest groups that living things are sorted into. The two biggest are the plant kingdom and
the animal kingdom
Life processes
Seven processes that all living things do that require energy: movement, reproduction,
sensitivity, growth, respiration, excretion and nutrition
Mammal
Vertebrates that produce milk. Whales are mammals
Omnivores
An animal that eats both plants and animals
Organism
Any living plant or animal
Photosynthesis
The process by which plants make their energy using water, carbon dioxide and sunlight
Population
A group of the same species living within a community
Precision
How small a measurement is. For example, mm is a more precise measurement than cm as it
is a smaller unit of measurement
Predator
An animal that kills and eats other animals. Sharks are
ferocious marine predators (pictured)
Preservation
Maintaining something in its exact state. Not letting anyone access a tropical desert island for
fear that it would destroy the local area would be a good example of preservation
Prey
An animal that is killed for food by another animal
Producers
An organism, usually a plant, which makes its
own biomass
Pyramid of numbers
Shows the number of organisms at each trophic (feeding)
level. Most pyramids of number have the highest
abundance of organisms at the base of the food web (the
primary producers), followed by consumers and finally the
top predator. Some pyramids of number however look less
pyramid shaped! A good example is the parasites that feed
off dolphins. This produces an irregularly shaped pyramid
of number. Can you think of any other examples?
Quadrat
A piece of equipment used by ecologists to sample the numbers of different organisms
present in a particular habitat
Random errors
Errors caused by factors that we cannot control
Reliability
If someone else can repeat your experiment and get the same results then your results are
reliable
Repeat reading
Taking more than one reading of the same measurement, e.g. of the abundance of anemones
of the mid-shore using a quadrat, can improve the reliability of your data. A minimum of three
repeat readings are usually taken in scientific investigations
Scavengers
Organisms that do not kill their own food but eat dead or decaying remains of plants and
animals.
Sensitivity
Being able to detect changes in the environment. Ways in
which most organisms detect changes in the environment
include sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Sharks for
example have an excellent sense of smell
Species
A group of living things that have many similar features and that can successfully interbreed
Sustainable development
Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs
Systematic errors
Errors caused by inaccurate equipment
Top predator
An organism in the food web that is not eaten by anything else
Transect
The slice of a habitat studied by ecologists. A transect is assumed to represent what is going
on in the habitat under investigation
Validity
Your results must be valid if you are going to be able to draw conclusions from them. This
includes repeat reading and being as precise as possible when measuring
Vertebrates
Animals that have a backbone