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Ecosystems
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| organism | a living thing |
| habitat | An environment that provides the things a specific organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce. |
| biotic factor | A living or once-living part of an organism’s habitat. |
| abiotic factor | A nonliving part of an organism’s habitat. |
| population | All the members of one species living in the same area. |
| community | All the different populations that live together in a certain area. |
| ecosystem | The community of organisms that live in a particular area, along with their nonliving environment. |
| limiting factor | An environmental factor that causes a population to decrease in size. |
| resources | Food, water, shelter and other things an organism gets from its environment |
| density | The measurement of how much mass of a substance is contained in a given volume. |
| producer | An organism that can make its own food. |
| consumer | An organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms. |
| decomposer | An organism that gets energy by breaking down biotic wastes and dead organisms and returns raw materials to the soil and water. |
| food chain | A series of events in an ecosystem in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten. |
| food web | The pattern of overlapping feeding relationships or food chains among the various organisms in an ecosystem. |
| energy pyramid | A diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one feeding level to another in a food web. |