Term | Definition |
biotic factors | living parts of the environment |
abiotic factors | non-living parts of the environment |
producer/autotroph | makes food through photosynthesis |
consumer/heterotroph | consumes other organisms |
decomposer | breaks down dead/decaying organisms and returns nutrients to soil |
herbivore | eats only plants |
carnivore | eats only animals/meat |
omnivore | eats plants and animals/meat |
scavenger | eats dead plants and animals |
food chain | shows how matter and energy move through an ecosystem in a series of steps showing which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten |
food web | model that shows all the possible feeding relationships at each trophic level in a community; links all food chains in an ecosystem together |
sun's role in food chain/web | ultimate source of energy for all living things |
energy pyramid | a triangular diagram that shows an ecosystem's loss of energy; each row in the pyramid represents a trophic (feeding) level in an ecosystem, and the area of a row represents the energy stored in that trophic level |
symbiosis | a close relationship between two species that benefits at least one of the species |
mutualism | a relationship in which both species benefit |
commensalism | a relationship in which one species benefits and the other species is neither helped nor harmed |
parasitism | involves one organism living on or inside another organism and harming it |
predator/prey | the predator is an organism that eats another organism and the prey is the organism being eaten |
competition | the relationship between two species (or individuals) in which both species (or individuals) attempt to use the same limited resource such that both are negatively affected by the relationship |
adaptation | the process of becoming adapted to an environment; an anatomical, physiological, or behavioral change that improves a population's ability to survive |