Term | Definition |
Energy | Comes from the sun. It is required by all living things for life. |
Matter | The materials that make up living organisms. It is recycled over and over again. |
Energy Pyramid | A diagram that shows how energy moves from one trophic level to another. |
Trophic Levels | The different feeding levels in an ecosystem. |
Food Chain | The trophic levels that show one set of feeding relationships. |
Food web | All of the feeding relationships in an ecosystem; interrelated food chains. |
Biomass | The amount of matter in a trophic level. The total mass of organisms in a given area or volume. |
Biomagnification | The accumulation of poisons that takes place from one trophic level to the next. |
Niche | An organism’s place in a community (job). |
Interactions | The relationships between organisms within an ecosystem. |
Chemosynthesis | The process in which producers make energy rich nutrients from chemicals. |
Riparian | A freshwater river ecosystem. |
Symbiosis | Any close relationship between species in a community. |
Mutualism | Both species benefit. |
Commensalism | One organism benefits and the other is unaffected. |
Parasitism | One species benefits and the other one is harmed. |
Consumers | Organisms that need to eat other organisms to get energy. |
Producers | Organisms that produce their own food by using energy from the sun. |
Herbivores | Animals that only eat plant matter. |
Carnivores | Animals that eat meat. |
Decomposers | Organisms that break down dead material and return the nutrients to the soil. |
Omnivores | Animals that eat both meat and plants. |
Predator | The organism that hunts other organisms for food. |
Prey | The organism that gets eaten by others for food. |
Cooperation | Organisms work together with each other to improve the survival of both. |
Competition | When organisms struggle, or fight one another for mates, food, territory, space and shelter. |
Abiotic Factors | The non-living parts of an environment. Rocks, soil, temperature, sunlight, water, etc. |
Biotic Fators | The living parts of an environment. |
Community | All of the populations in an ecosystem. |
Population | All of the organisms in an ecosystem that are part of the same species. |
Habitat | The place in which an organism lives. |
Ecosystem | All of the organisms living in an area and the non-living features of their environment. |
Ecology | The study of interactions that occur among organisms and their environment. |
Biosphere | The part of the Earth that supports life. |
Limiting Factor | Anything that restricts the number of individuals in a population. |
Name some examples of limiting factors. | Can be Living and non-living features of an ecosystem. Availability of food, water, living space, mates, nesting sites, etc. |
Carrying Capacity | The largest number of individuals of a species that an ecosystem can support over time. |
The Carbon Cycle | Describes how carbon molecules move between the living and nonliving world. |
The Nitrogen Cycle | The transfer of nitrogen from the atmosphere to the soil, to living organisms and then back to the atmosphere. |
The Water Cycle | The movement of water through the environment via transpiration, precipitation, evaporation, and condensation. |
Nitrogen Fixation | A process through which some types of soil bacteria can form the nitrogen compounds that plants need. |
Biomes | Large geographic areas with similar climates and ecosystem. |
Which biome in temperate and tropical regions with 25cm-75cm of precipitation a year? It is dominated by climax communities of grasses. It is ideal for growing crops and raising cattle and sheep. | Grasslands |
Which biome usually has four distinct seasons, an annual precipitation between 75cm and 150cm, and climax communities of deciduous trees? | Temperate Deciduous Forest |
Which biome is the most biologically diverse biome, has an average temperature of 25 degrees C and receives between 200cm and 600cm of rain each year? | Tropical Rain Forest |
Which biome receives 200cm to 400cm of precipitation each year with average temperatures between 9 degrees C and 12 degrees C? The forests are dominated by trees with needle like leaves. | Temperate Rain Forest |
Which biome is cold, dry, treeless and receives less than 25cm of precipitation of each year? It has a short growing season, permafrost, and winters that can be 6 to 9 months long. | Tundra |
Which biome is the world's largest biome and is located south of the tundra between 50 degrees N and 60 degrees N? It has long cold winters, precipitaion between 35cm and 100cm each year, cone-bearing evergreen trees and dense forests. | Taiga |
Which biome is the driest biome on earth with less than 25cm of rain a year? It has dunes or thin soil with little organic matter. It has plants and animals specially adapted to survive extreme conditions. | Desert |
Which marine biome has barnacles, ghost crabs, wading shorebirds, and periwinkles? | Seashore |
Which marine biome is an important nursery area for many species of ocean fish and shellfish? | Estuary |
Which marine biome is divided into zones based on the depth sunlight reaches? | Open Ocean |
Which marine biome contains colorful fishes and a variety of other animals? | Coral Reef |
Which marine biome has tides affect the temperature, salinity, and moisture for animals living in it? | Seashore |
Which marine biome has whales, sea turtles, dolphins and plankton are found in it? | Open Ocean |
Which marine biome has too many nutrients washing in from rivers causes harmful algae blooms? | Estuary |
Which marine biome is formed from calcium carbonate shells, the remains of small filter feeding animals? | Coral Reef |
Examples of this marine biome are Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Indian. | Open Ocean |
Which marine biome has environmental threats such as human development and pollution being washed ashore? | Seashore |
These aquatic biomes are characterized by still water, deep cool, low nutrients, plants only grow along the edge, home to large fish, geese and beavers. | Lakes |
These aquatic biomes are characterized by still water, shallow, high nutrients, plants grow across the bottom. Home to dragonflies, frogs and ducks. | Ponds |
These aquatic biomes are characterized by slow moving water, warm, high nutrients, home to shad, catfish, bass and muskrats. | Rivers |
These aquatic biomes are characterized by little to no salinity, fast moving water, high oxygen, low nutrients, home to crayfish and fly larvae. | Streams |
These aquatic biomes are wet part or all of the year, can be fresh or salty, cattails or grasses, home to ducks, snails or wading birds. | Wetlands |
Sun-->grass--> grasshopper--> frog--> snake
What is this an example of? | Food Chain |
In a food chain and food web, which way are the arrows moving? | The direction that energy is moving. |
Consumers living in the hydrothermal vent communities rely on what type of producers because of the lack of sunlight? | Chemosynthetic bacteria |
What is the vocabulary word for the mass of all the living and dead organic matter in an ecosystem? | Biomass |
Photosynthesis | The process in which producers convert light energy into the chemical energy of sugar molecules. |
The bottom layer of an energy pyramid represents which organisms? | The producers |