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Ecosystems
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Biotic | Relating to or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations. |
| Abiotic | Physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms. |
| Ecosystem | A biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. |
| Habitat | The natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. |
| Organism | The material structure of an individual life form. |
| Population | All the organisms of the same group or species that live in a specific area and are capable of breeding among themselves. |
| Community | An interacting group of various species in a common location. |
| Biosphere | The part of the earth where living things exist. |
| Producer | Organisms that make their own food |
| Consumer | An organism that cannot produce its own food and must eat other plants and/or animals to get energy. |
| Decomposer | An organism, often a bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate that feeds on and breaks down dead plant or animal matter, making organic nutrients available to the ecosystem. |
| Herbivore | An organism that mostly feeds on plants. |
| Carnivore | An organism that mostly eats meat, or the flesh of animals. |
| Omnivore | An organism that eats plants and animals. |
| Scavenger | Organism that eats dead or rotting biomass, such as animal flesh or plant material. |
| Predator | Any organism that by preying on other organisms. |
| Prey | An animal hunted or Seized for food, especially by a carnivorous animal. |
| Niche | The role or job that an organism plays in in an habitat. |
| Biome | A large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat, e.g. forest or tundra. |
| Terrestrial Ecosystem | A land-based community of organisms and the interactions of biotic and abiotic components in a given area. |
| Deciduous Forest | Characterized by trees that lose their leaves at the end of each growing season. |
| Grassland | Generally open and continuous, fairly flat areas of grass. |
| Rainforest | An area of tall, mostly evergreen trees and a high amount of rainfall. |
| Desert | A place that receives less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain per year. |
| Aquatic ecosystem | Within these aquatic ecosystems are living things that depend on the water for survival, such as fish, plants, and microorganisms. |
| Freshwater | Any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. |
| Pond | A body of water smaller than a lake, sometimes artificially formed, as by damming a stream. |
| Lake | A body of water that is surrounded by land. |
| River | A ribbon-like body of water that flows downhill from the force of gravity. |
| Stream | A small, narrow river. |
| Saltwater ecosystem | Open ocean, the deep-sea ocean, and coastal marine ecosystems |
| Ocean | A large area of water between continents |
| Sea | A great body of salty water that covers much of the earth. A body of salt water not as large as an ocean |
| Saltmarsh | Coastal wetlands that are flooded and drained by salt water brought in by the tides. |
| Estuary | The tidal mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the stream. |
| Food Chain | a hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food. |
| Primary Consumer | The organisms that eat the producers; tend to be small in size and there are many of them. |
| Secondary Consumer | The organisms that eat the primary consumers are called secondary consumers. Secondary consumers are generally meat-eaters. |
| Tertiary Consumer | Are animals that eat other animals. Specifically, they eat the secondary consumers in a food chain. |
| Trophic levels | Is defined as the position of an organism in the food chain and ranges from a value of 1 for primary producers to 5 for marine mammals and humans. |
| Autotroph | An organism that is able to form nutritional organic substances from simple inorganic substances such as carbon dioxide. |
| Heterotroph | Are organisms that consume other organisms for energy. They use the process of cellular respiration to turn their food into energy. Heterotrophs are also called consumers. They are very different from autotrophs, also called producers. |
| Food Web | Consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem. Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem. |
| Energy Pyramid | Is a graphical representation of the energy found within the trophic levels of an ecosystem. The bottom and largest level of the pyramid is the producers and contains the largest amount of energy. |
| Competition | The direct or indirect interaction of organisms that leads to a change in fitness when the organisms share the same resource. |
| Natural Resources | Are materials from the Earth that are used to support life and meet people's needs. |
| Brackish | Slightly salty, as is the mixture of river water and seawater in estuaries. |
Created by:
Amodi
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