| A | B |
|---|
| ecosystem | all the living and nonliving things in an environment and how they interact. It can be large or small. |
| habitat | a place where an animal or plant lives |
| consumer | a living thing that gets energy by eating plants and other animals |
| herbivore | a consumer that eats plants |
| carnivore | a consumer that eats other consumers (meat) |
| omnivore | a consumer that eats both plants and other consumers |
| scavenger | an animal that eats dead animals |
| decomposer | a consumer that puts materials from dead plants and animals back into the soil, air, and water |
| food chain | the flow of energy through a community |
| predator | an animal that hunts and kills other animals for food |
| prey | the animals that predators hunt |
| food web | all the food chains in a community |
| Name several living parts of an ecosystem | Insects, worms, plants and trees, animals, and bacteria are all living parts of an ecosystem |
| Name several nonliving parts of an ecosystem. | Wind, rocks, soil, water, sunlight, and air are nonliving parts of an ecosystem. |
| What might happen if the nonliving parts of an ecosystem were removed? | Without sunlight, soil, or water, plants could not grow. Without plants, animals could not survive. |
| What is deforestation? | Deforestation is the clearing of a large area of trees. When trees are cut down, animals lose their habitats. |
| producer | a living thing that uses sunlight to make sugar |
| What are examples of a carnivore? | An owl and a spider are examples of a carnivore. |
| What are examples of an herbivore? | Examples of an herbivore are a rabbit and a chipmunk |
| What are examples of a omnivore? | A flying squirrel and a crow are examples of an omnivore. |
| How are decomposers important? | Decomposers break down the bodies of dead or decaying plants and animals into minerals and nutrients. |
| How can weather affect a food web? | Weather can change the size of one or more organisms in the food web (increase or decrease). Storms damage plants and sometimes cause fires. Floods often result from bad weather, and they can disrupt the food chains and food webs. |
| How can people affect a food web in a negative way? | The negative ways to hurt a food web are to spray pesticides, overfish or overhunt, deforestation, and pollution. |
| How can people affect a food web in a positive way? | The positive ways to help a food web are to replant and to raise butterflies to release. |
| photosynthesis | A process by which plants change light energy from the sun and use it to make sugar |
| compost | A natural fertilizer made of dead plant parts |
