| A | B |
|---|
| special characteristics that help in survival | adaptation |
| natural relationship between two kinds of organisms that lasts over time | symbiosis |
| one organism benefits without helping or harming the other | commensalism |
| one organism lives on or in another organism and can harm it | parasitism |
| when a relationship between two kinds of organisms benefits both | mutualism |
| meat eater | carnivore |
| controls the growth or survival of an organism or population | limiting factor |
| interaction between species in which one species uses another species as food | predation |
| plant and meat eater | omnivore |
| any form of water that falls to the earth | precipitation |
| path of energy in food from one organism to another | food chain |
| where plants and animals live and grow naturally | habitat |
| meat eater that feeds on dead animals | scavenger |
| a living thing that is hunted for food | prey |
| plant eater | herbivore |
| all the living things in an ecosystem | community |
| living part of an ecosystem (animals, plants, fungi, protists, bacteria) | biotic factor |
| non-living part of an ecosystem | abiotic factor |
| molecule found in the nucleus of a cell that stores information about traits | DNA |
| short, thick coils of DNA | chromosome |
| trait that an organism develops after birth (some come from environment, some are learned) | acquired trait |
| characteristic passed from parent to offspring | inherited trait |
| passing down of traits from parents to offspring | heredity |
| living things that hunt other living things for food | predator |
| members of one species in one area | population |
| role of an organism in a community | niche |
| species that eats carnivores, called a top predator | tertiary-consumer |
| species that eats herbivores, also a type of carnivore | second-order consumer |
| species that eats only producers, also called a herbivore | first-order consumer |
| plants and algae that produce oxygen and food for animals | producer |
| overlapping food chains | food web |
| all living and non-living things in an environment | ecosystem |
| study of how living and non-living things interact | ecology |
