| A | B |
|---|
| Food Chain | A simple way of showing how energy from food passes from one organism to another. |
| Food Web | A series of overlapping food chains that provides a more complete model of the way energy moves through an ecosystem/community. |
| Water Cycle | The movement of water through precipitation, evaporation, and condensation. |
| Biosphere | The Earth's ecosystem as a whole. The part of the Earth that supports living organisms. |
| Biotic Factors | Living organisms in the environment. |
| Abiotic Factors | Non-living, physical features of the environment such as soil, water, precipitation, temperature, altitude, terrain, sunlight. |
| Ecology | The science of the relationships between organisms and other organisms and their environment. |
| Population | Individual organisms of the same species in the same place. |
| Community | Groups of populations that interact with each other in a given area. |
| Ecosystem | A biotic community and the abiotic factors that affect it. |
| Biome | The largest ecosystems in the world that have specific climates and flora/fauna. Typically there are between 10 and 15 major examples including taiga, tundra, savanna, temperate deciduous forest, wetlands, desert, among others. |
| Climate | Abiotic (nonliving) environmental factors made up of four characteristics; temperature, altitude, latitude, and precipitation. |
| Altitude | Distance above sea level. This abiotic factors affects climate because as elevation is gained, average temperature drops significantly. |
| Latitude | A measure of distance from the equator. The further from the equator, a climate is more greatly affect by seasonal shifts in sunlight, and consequently increased variability in temperature, weather, and precipitation. |
| Temperature | An abiotic factor that is a key factor in climate conditions, especially weather patterns and precipitation. It measures the level of heat or cold in degress of celcius or fahrenheit. |
| Precipitation | An abiotic factor that encompasses all water forms released through the water cycle from the clouds back to the land. This includes fog, rain, hail, sleet, and snow. It has an immense effect on farming and food production. |
| Photosynthesis | Most producers make food through this process of turning light energy into glucose (chemical energy). |
| Chemosynthesis | The production of energy-rich molecules from chemicals. This is how archaebacteria makes food. |
| Energy Pyramid | This diagram shows the amount of energy available at each feeding level in an ecosystem. |
| Producers | These organisms make their own fod and are the base of the food chain. |
| Consumers | These organisms must eat or absorb food. They rely on producers or other consumers for food. |
| Taiga | The largest biome on Earth, it is cold and is found in northern Russia, Scandinavia, and Canada. It has only conifer trees (needle). |
| Tundra | This biome is very cold and has no trees. Its soil is frozen most of the year and is called permafrost. |
| Desert | This biome has a hot, very very dry climate. |
| Temperate Deciduous Forest | Our biome. It is defined by a temperate and reasonably wet climate and has large numbers of both conifers and deciduous trees. |
| Tropical Rainforest | This biome has a very hot, very wet, very humid climate. |
| Habitat | The place where an animal lives. |
| Carrying Capacity | The largest number of organisms an ecosystem can support at a given time. |
| Limiting Factor | Anything that restricts the number of individuals in a population like food, water, sunlight or shelter. |
| Niche | A organism's role in its environment. |
| Mutualism | A symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit. |
| Soil | A mixture of mineral and rock particles as well as the remains of dead organism, water and air. It is both biotic and abiotic. |
| Condensation | The process in the water cycle where watr vapor condenses back into a liquid form and creates clouds. |
| Evaporation | The process of the water cycle where water turns from a liquid to vapor and rises in the atmosphere. |
| Nitrogen Fixation | A process of the nitrogen cycle where bacteria in the soil forms nitrogen compounds that plants can use and absorb. |
| Nitrogen | An element that organisms need in order to properly create proteins important to cell processes. |
