Term | Definition |
Abiotic | nonliving parts of the environment |
Autotroph | produces its own food; source of energy for all other living things |
Biodiversity | variety of species in an area |
Biosphere | all of Earth's ecosystems including water, land, and air in which organisms survive |
Carnivore | an organism that survives by eating animals |
Carrying Capacity | the largest population of any single species that survives by eating animals |
Community | a combination of all the different populations that live and interact in the same environment |
Competition | the struggle between organisms for the same limited resources in a particular area |
Consumer | an organism that obtains its energy from producers |
Decomposer | an organism, generally a bacterium or fungus, that consumes dead organisms and organic waste |
Ecology | the study of how living things interact with one another and with their environment |
Ecological Niche | the specific role played by an organism or a population of organisms in the ecosystem |
Ecological Succession | the process by which an existing community is replaced by another community |
Ecosystem | all the living and nonliving things that interact in a specific area; a subdivision of the environment |
Energy Pyramid | a diagram showing how food energy moves through an ecosystem |
Environment | every living and nonliving thing that surrounds an organism |
Food Chain | a representation that identifies the specific feeding relationships among organisms |
Food Web | many interconnected food chains that shows the feeding relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers |
Habitat | the place where an animal or plant lives |
Herbivore | an organism that eats only plants |
Heterotroph | organism that cannot make its own food; a consumer |
Host | the organism in a parasitic relationship that provides a home and/or food for the parasite (Hint: a cat is the host to a flea) |
Limiting Factors | any factor in the environment that limits the size of a population |
Parasite | an organism that survives by living and feeding on their organism (Hint: a flea is a parasite) |
Population | all the individuals of a single species that live in a specific area |
Predator | an animal that hunts and kills other animals for food |
Prey | an animal that is hunted and killed by predator |
Producer | an organism that makes its own food from light energy and inorganic materials |
Scavenger | a carnivore that feeds on the bodies of dead organisms |
Biotic | living parts of the environment (Hint: "Bio" means living) |