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U3 Ecoystems
Ecoystems
| grassland | very spacious, tall grasses |
|---|---|
| rainforest | soil is soft and damp, lots of animals |
| forest | lots of animals and trees |
| river | rivers start at mountains and hills |
| stream | streams start at mountains and hills |
| lake | some deserts have lakes, big and deep |
| pond | smaller and not wide |
| freshwater | water that has no salt in it |
| brackish water | water that has some salt in it |
| Biotic factors | a living thing, as an animal or plant, that influences or affects an ecosystem. |
| abiotic factors | a nonliving condition or thing, such as climate or habitat, that influences or affects an ecosystem and the organisms in it. |
| producers | an organism, as a plant, that is able to produce its own food from inorganic substances |
| consumers | an organism, usually an animal, that feeds on plants or other animals. |
| decomposers | an organism, usually a bacterium or fungus, that breaks down the cells of dead plants and animals into simpler substances. |
| herbivore | animals that get their energy by only eating producers or plants. |
| carnivore | animals that get their energy by only eating other consumers. |
| omnivore | animals that get their energy by only eating other consumers. |
| predatore | any organism that exists by preying on other organisms. |
| prey | an animal hunted or seized for food, especially by a carnivorous animal. |
| terrestrial ecosystem | a land-based community of organisms |
| aquatic ecosystems | an ecosystem in a body of water. |
| food chain | the path of food energy from one organism to another in an ecosystem |
| food webs | overlapping food chains with different pathways for the flow of food energy in an ecosystem |
| energy pyramid | a diagram that shows the amount of energy passed on at each level of a food chain |
| competiton | the struggle of organisms against each other to get the same resource |
| natural resources | materials in the environment that useful to people |
| population | all the organisms of the same species that live in the same place at the same time |
| community | populations of different kinds of organisms that live in the same place at the same time. |
| habitat | the environment where an organisms lives |
| estuary | a place where fresh water from a river empties into the ocean and mixes with it |
| brackish | slightly salty, as is the mixture of river water and seawater in estuaries. |