Question | Answer |
biogeography | the study of where organisms live |
continental drift | as the plates move, continents move with them |
dispersal | the movement of organisms from one plate to another |
exotic species | an organism that is carried into a new location by people |
climate | the typical weather pattern in an area over a long period of time |
water cycle | is the continuous process by which water moves from earths surface to the atmosphere and back |
evaporation | the process by which molecules of liquid water absorb energy and change to a gas |
condensation | the process by which a gas changes to a liquid |
precipitation | heavy drops of water falling to the earth |
nitrogen fixaion | the process of changing free nitrogen into usable form of nitrogen |
producer | an organism that can make its own food |
consumer | an organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organism |
herbivores | consumers that eat only plants |
carnivores | consumers that eat only animals |
omnivores | consumers that eat both plants and animals |
scavenger | is a carnivore that feeds on the bodies of dead organisms |
decomposers | break down wastes and dead organisms and return the raw materials to the ecosystem |
food chain | is a series of events in which one organism eats another and obtains energy |
food web | consists of the many overlapping food chains in an ecosystem |
energy pyramid | shows the amount of energy that moves from one feeding level to another in a food web |