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Week 2 Vocabulary for Environmental Science

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Term
Definition
conservation   preserving, maintaining, & restoring something important, like our water and natural resources  
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ecosystem   all the living & nonliving things in an area that interact in various ways with each other  
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ecotone   the transitional/overlapping area between two ecosystems that might contain organisms common to both ecosystems  
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biotic factors   living features of an ecosystem  
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abiotic factors   nonliving features of an ecosystem  
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population   group of individual organisms from the SAME SPECIES, living together in an area  
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community   all of the different populations of species living together in an area  
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biome   a group of similar or related ecosystems on earth; ex: deserts, tundra, tropical rain forests  
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biosphere   the portion of earth that contains all of the living organisms  
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habitat   the physical place or location where an organism lives  
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niche   the role an organism plays in the environment (where does it eat, how does it eat, when does it eat, where does it live, etc.)  
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biotic structure   the way living things work or fit together within an ecosystem  
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trophic structure   how organisms feed on each other  
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producers   also known as autotrophs; organisms that capture energy directly from the sun to make their own food (i.e. plants)  
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consumers   organisms that get their energy by eating other organisms  
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herbivore   plant eater  
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carnivore   meat eater  
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omnivore   eats both plants and meat  
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decomposer/detritus feeder   feeds on dead material or waste; helps return nutrients back to the soil  
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heterotroph   organism that cannot make its own food; consumers and decomposers are heterotrophs  
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food chain   single pathway of energy, shows who eats whom  
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food web   many interconnected food chains that show all the different interactions in an ecosystem  
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energy pyramid   also known as an ecological pyramid; shows the amount of energy that moves from one trophic level to the next  
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symbiosis   a close relationship between two different species that live & interact together  
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predation   when a predator hunts and kills prey, usually for food  
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competition   when two different organisms fight or compete for the same limited resource & both are usually harmed  
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mutualism   symbiotic relationship in which both organisms benefit  
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parasitism   symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits (parasite) and one organism is harmed (host) but not usually killed right away  
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commensalism   symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits and the other is not affected, good or bad  
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matter   anything that has mass and takes up space; everything is made of matter!  
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energy   the ability to do work, such as moving, growing, and metabolizing food sources  
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work   applying a force over a distance (F x d)  
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Law of Conservation of Matter   law that states that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only recombined into new compounds  
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1st Law of Thermodynamics   law that states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only converted into different forms  
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2nd Law of Thermodynamics   law that states that as energy is converted into different forms, much of it is lost as heat instead of being usable  
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biogeochemical cycles   cycling of materials such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water throughout the living & nonliving components of an ecosystem  
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eutrophication   overgrowth & death of phytoplankton, which decreases oxygen levels in a body of water due to excess bacteria that feed on the dead phytoplankton  
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