| A | B |
|---|
| ecosystem | all the communities of living things in an area (abiotic and biotic) |
| community | all populations of living things in a given area |
| biosphere | the zone of air, land, and water at Earth's surface where organisms live |
| habitat | the place or environmental conditions in which organisms live (food, water, shelter, space) |
| niche | the role an organism plays in its habitat |
| producers | make their own food with CO2, H2O, minerals and sunlight |
| aquatic producers | blue-green algae, plants and other algae |
| blue-green algae | cyanobacteria |
| consumers | cannot make their own food |
| decomposers | break down dead plant and animal matter; fungi & bacteria |
| detritus | any loose material especially decomposed, broken and dead organic materials |
| food chain | a series of organisms that shows a transfer of food from one level to the next in an ecosystem |
| food web | a network of food chains showing feeding relationships in an ecosystem |
| energy pyramid | diagram representing the loss of useful energy at each step of the food chain |
| 10% | average amount of energy each organism recieves from the organism it eats |
| numbers pyramid | diagram showing the relative population size at each trophic level in an ecosystem |
| trophic level | a layer in the structure of feeding relationships in an ecosystem |
| bottom of an energy pyramid | producers |
| top of an energy pyramid | large carnivores (top level consumers) |
