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Ecosystems
Unit 4 Vocabulary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Biome | A major type of ecological community such as desert, tundra, grassland |
| Carnivore | An animal that eats other animals to get energy to survive |
| Community | A group of living things sharing an environment |
| Consumer | An organism that must eat food to get energy to survive |
| Decay | To rot and break down dead organisms into smaller parts |
| Decomposer | A consumer that breaks down dead plants and animals |
| Ecosystem | All the living and non-living elements in an area |
| Energy | What organisms receive from making food (plants) or eating food (animals) |
| Flow of Energy | Energy moving or traveling in a certain direction |
| Food Web | Interactions between many different food chains in an ecosystem |
| Habitat | A place or environment in which an organism naturally lives |
| Herbivore | An animal that eats plants to get energy to survive |
| Living | Part of an ecosystem that requires energy to survive and has basic needs that must be met |
| Niche | The role or job an organism plays in its environment |
| Nonliving | Part of an ecosystem that does not require energy to survive and doesn't have basic needs that must be met |
| Omnivore | An animal that eats both plants and animals to get energy to survive |
| Organism | Anything that is alive- plant or animal |
| Population | All of one type of organisms living in an ecosystem (example: a population of grasshoppers or prairie dogs) |
| Producer | An organism that makes its own food- a plant |
| Species | A group of organisms with similar characteristics that allow them to reproduce |
| Survive | To stay alive |