biological control - the use of living organisms to control pests or diseases. This may involve the release of a natural or genetically modified organism.

carnivores - animals that eat other animals (herbivores and/or carnivores)

consumers - organisms that eat other organisms

decomposers - organisms (e.g. bacteria/fungi) that break down animal and plant remains, converting them into useful nutrients for themselves and other plants and animals

detritivores - a consumer organism that directly consumes dead organisms and organic wastes (e.g. earthworm, termite and crab)

displaces - ‘takes the place of’ in a natural system

electrofishing - the use of electric currents to stun fish temporarily, enabling them to be weighed and measured. Electrofishing is a useful sampling technique as it gives a good indication of which species are present in a system.

eradication - the complete and permanent removal of a species/population from a specific area

exotic pest fish - all exotic species that presently cause harm, or have the potential to cause harm to the native aquatic environment exotic species a species that is not native (indigenous) to the area under discussion

exploitation competition - competition between species where one species uses the resources required by another species to the point where the resources are insufficient for that species to flourish (e.g. carp competing with native fish for food)

finfish - fish that have fins (this excludes crustaceans which are listed as fisheries resources under The Fisheries Act 1994)

food chain - represents a series of steps which display feeding relationships between producer and consumer organisms (e.g. weed is eaten by insect is eaten by tilapia is eaten by crocodile)

herbivores - consumers that eat plants

hybrid - an individual resulting from interbreeding of two species (e.g. carp and goldfish). Hybrids are usually infertile.

impoundment - artificially enclosed body of water such as a dam indigenous native to a country or area

interference competition - competition between species where one species prevents another species accessing a resource (e.g. through behavioural aggression or exclusion) such as food or a nesting site

introduced - any species intentionally or accidentally released into an environment outside its natural range

non-indigenous - not native to a country or area

noxious - a plant or animal declared harmful by Australian statute law for compulsory eradication (Note that noxious does not mean poisonous.)

omnivores - animals that can eat both plants and animals

opportunistic - changes food preferences according to what is available

pest - any species, though often an exotic species, that has a negative economic or ecological impact

producers - organisms such as plants that produce their own food from the non-living environment by photosynthesis

riparian - on or near a river

roiling - the process of selecting or filtering small food particles from the water or ingesting food particles from the bottom and filtering out food items

+ Many of the definitions listed in this section are taken from Managing the Impacts of Carp (Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra) by J. Koehn, A. Brumley and P. Gehrke, 2000.

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Teacher resource i.2 Introductory

Glossary

Teacher resource i.2
Introductory