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environ science
chapter 3-4 vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Carnivore | consumer that eats only other consumers |
| cellular respiration | process of breaking down food to yield energy |
| climax community | final, stable community that forms when land is left undisturbed |
| consumer | organism that gets its energy by eating other organisms; heterotroph |
| decomposer | consumer that get its food by breaking down dead organisms, causing them to rot |
| food chain | the sequence in which energy is transferred from one organism to the next as each organism eats and is then eaten by another |
| food web | diagram showing the feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem |
| herbivore | consumer that eats only producers |
| nitrogen-fixing bacteria | bacteria that convert nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into a form that plants can use |
| omnivore | consumer that eats both plants and animals |
| pioneers | first organisms to colonize any newly available area and start the process of succession |
| precipitation | rain, sleet, snow, or hail that has condensed from water vapor in the atmosphere and returns to the Earth's surface |
| primary succession | succession that occurs in areas where no ecosystem has existed previously |
| producer | organism that makes its own food; autotroph |
| secondary succession | pattern of change in an area where an ecosystem has previously existed |
| succession | the regular pattern of changes over time in the types of species in a community |
| trophic level | a step in the transfer of energy through an ecosystem; the level of a food chain that an organism occupies |
| water cycle | the continual process by which water circulates between the atmosphere and the Earth |
| benthic zone | bottom of a body of water; inhabited by decomposers, insect larvae, and clams |
| biome | regions that have distinctive climates and organisms and that contain many separate but similar ecosystems |
| canopy | in a forest, the covering of tall trees whose intertwining branches absorb a great amount of sunlight and shade the area beneath |
| chaparral | coastal biome with a Mediterranean climate and low-lying vegetation |
| coral reef | limestone islands in the sea built by coral animals |
| desert | biome that receives less than 10 in. of precipitation a year |
| drought-resistance | characteristic of a plant that allows it to survive in areas of light or sporadic rainfall |
| estivating | practice of lying dormant underground during the summer |
| estuary | aquatic ecosystem in which fresh water from rivers mixes with salt water from the ocean, forming a nutrient trap |
| littoral zone | the shallow-water area near the shores of lakes and ponds where sunlight reaches the bottom |
| permafrost | permanently frozen soil a few inches below the active soil in tundra biomes |
| taiga | biome dominated by conifers and characterized by harsh winters; occurs just below the Arctic Circle; also called northern coniferous forest |
| temperate deciduous forest | forest in an area of extreme seasonal variation in which trees drop their leaves each fall |
| temperate grasslands | biome occurring in semi-arid interiors of continents; examples are the prairies of North America, the steppes of Russia and Ukraine, and the pampas of South America |
| temperate rain forest | cool, hemid biome where tree branches are draped with mosses, tree trunks are covered with lichens, and the forest floor is covered with ferns |
| savanna | tropical grassland biome with a short rainy season |
| tundra | biome without trees, where grasses and tough shrubs grow in the frozen soil; extends from the Arctic Circle to the North Pole |
| wetlands | area of land covered by water for at least part of the year |
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purplepenguin