Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Env Science Week 2
Week 2 Vocabulary for Environmental Science
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| conservation | preserving, maintaining, & restoring something important, like our water and natural resources |
| ecosystem | all the living & nonliving things in an area that interact in various ways with each other |
| ecotone | the transitional/overlapping area between two ecosystems that might contain organisms common to both ecosystems |
| biotic factors | living features of an ecosystem |
| abiotic factors | nonliving features of an ecosystem |
| population | group of individual organisms from the SAME SPECIES, living together in an area |
| community | all of the different populations of species living together in an area |
| biome | a group of similar or related ecosystems on earth; ex: deserts, tundra, tropical rain forests |
| biosphere | the portion of earth that contains all of the living organisms |
| habitat | the physical place or location where an organism lives |
| niche | the role an organism plays in the environment (where does it eat, how does it eat, when does it eat, where does it live, etc.) |
| biotic structure | the way living things work or fit together within an ecosystem |
| trophic structure | how organisms feed on each other |
| producers | also known as autotrophs; organisms that capture energy directly from the sun to make their own food (i.e. plants) |
| consumers | organisms that get their energy by eating other organisms |
| herbivore | plant eater |
| carnivore | meat eater |
| omnivore | eats both plants and meat |
| decomposer/detritus feeder | feeds on dead material or waste; helps return nutrients back to the soil |
| heterotroph | organism that cannot make its own food; consumers and decomposers are heterotrophs |
| food chain | single pathway of energy, shows who eats whom |
| food web | many interconnected food chains that show all the different interactions in an ecosystem |
| energy pyramid | also known as an ecological pyramid; shows the amount of energy that moves from one trophic level to the next |
| symbiosis | a close relationship between two different species that live & interact together |
| predation | when a predator hunts and kills prey, usually for food |
| competition | when two different organisms fight or compete for the same limited resource & both are usually harmed |
| mutualism | symbiotic relationship in which both organisms benefit |
| parasitism | symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits (parasite) and one organism is harmed (host) but not usually killed right away |
| commensalism | symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits and the other is not affected, good or bad |
| matter | anything that has mass and takes up space; everything is made of matter! |
| energy | the ability to do work, such as moving, growing, and metabolizing food sources |
| work | applying a force over a distance (F x d) |
| Law of Conservation of Matter | law that states that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only recombined into new compounds |
| 1st Law of Thermodynamics | law that states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only converted into different forms |
| 2nd Law of Thermodynamics | law that states that as energy is converted into different forms, much of it is lost as heat instead of being usable |
| biogeochemical cycles | cycling of materials such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water throughout the living & nonliving components of an ecosystem |
| eutrophication | overgrowth & death of phytoplankton, which decreases oxygen levels in a body of water due to excess bacteria that feed on the dead phytoplankton |
Created by:
jodytwining
Popular Science sets