AQA GCSE Biology key terms

A sequence showing feeding relationships between organisms, with arrows pointing from the organism eaten to the organism that eats it.

The proportion of an animal's food intake that contributes to useful production, such as an increase in its biomass.

Having enough food to feed a population.

The preserved remains or traces of an organism from millions of years ago, found in rock.

All the fossils that have been found, together with information about their ages.

The number of times a value, category or class interval occurs.

A graphical display showing how frequently values, categories or groups occur.

A table that lists values, categories or class intervals alongside the number of observations in each.

A process within an organism that helps it survive.

A chemical treatment used to kill or inhibit fungi.

A pathogen that can cause disease in plants or animals and may reproduce by producing spores.

A reproductive cell containing one chromosome from each pair; human sperm and egg cells each contain 23 chromosomes.

A section of DNA that influences a characteristic and can be passed from parent to offspring.

The use of a gene’s instructions to produce its protein.

The movement of alleles between populations when their members interbreed.

All the different alleles present in a population.

A horizontal level in a pedigree containing family members at the same stage of descent, such as parents or their children.

An explanation of inheritance in which genes are units of genetic information located on chromosomes.

Having the same genetic information.

An organism whose genetic material has been changed using genetic engineering.

A diagram showing the possible chromosome or allele combinations that offspring could inherit from their parents.

Changing an organism’s genome by introducing a gene from another organism to give a desired characteristic.

The material that carries the biological instructions controlling a cell; it is made of DNA.

A change to an organism's genetic material, such as inserting a gene that gives it a useful characteristic.

A version of a region of DNA whose base sequence differs from another version.

Variation caused by differences in inherited genetic material.

All the genetic material of an organism.