| Term | Definition |
| habitat | environment that provides the things an organism needs to live, grow, and reproduce |
| biotic | living parts of the habitat (ex: tree, insect) |
| abiotic | nonliving parts of the habitat (ex: water, soil) |
| organism | a living thing |
| population | all the members of one organism in a particular area |
| community | all the different populations that live together in one area |
| ecosystem | all the living and nonliving things in a particular area |
| biomes | a group of land ecosystems with similar climates and organisms |
| food chains | series of events in which one organism eats another and obtains energy |
| food web | consists of many overlapping food chains in ecosystems (points to the consumer) |
| energy pyramid | as you move up the energy pyramid you lose energy |
| plankton | tiny drifting organisms found near the surface of aquatic environments |
| phytoplankton | plant like, include autotrophic Protists (plant cell) |
| zooplankton | animal like, include heterotrophic, decomposers or parasite Protist (Spongebob) |
| niche | the role of an organism in its habitat (its job) |
| competition | struggle between organisms to survive as they attempt to pursue the same limited resources |
| predation | an interaction in which one organism kills another for food |
| predator | organism that does the killing |
| prey | organism that is killed |
| producer (autotroph) | organism that makes its own food |
| consumer (heterotroph) | obtains energy from feeding on other organisms |
| herbivores | only eats plants |
| carnivores | only eats animals |
| omnivores | eats both plants and animals |
| decomposer | break down dead waste and return the raw material back to the ecosystem (bacteria, fungi, worms) |
| scavenger | a carnivore that feeds on the bodies of dead organisms |
