| A | B |
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| energy flow | the energy flows from one living thing to another in several steps these steps are based on what a living thing eats and where it gets its food . Each living thing fills a niche in this flow of energy . |
| energy from the sun | the sun provides materials with what they need , these materials are energy from the sunlight , nutrients from the air , water , and soil . |
| producer | a living thing containing chlorphill and capable of using sunlight to make its own food from materials taken from the soil and air . |
| consumer | a living thing that eats other living things . |
| herbivore | an animal that eats only plants or plant materials . |
| carnivore | an animal that only eats other animals . |
| recieving energy | animals and small living things recieve their energy by eating the stored food in plants or by eating the stored food in plants or by eating other organisms . |
| omnivore | an animal that eats both plants and other animals . |
| decomposer | a living thing that feeds on dead materials , breaking them down and returning the materials to the environment . |
| food chain | the arrangement of living things in an order in which each uses the next as a source of food . |
| food web | a combination of all the food chains in an ecosystem . |
| food pyramid | a diagram to show how the amount of food energy available changes at each step of the food chain . |
| limiting factor | a factor that controls the number of living things that an ecosystem can support . |
| carrying capacity | the maximum number of living things that agiven ecosystem can support without danger to the survival of the living things . |
| cycle | the movement of resoures in an ecosystem that results in materials being used again and again . |
