| A | B |
|---|
| adaptation | a change in a plant or animal that aids in its survival |
| behavior | the way in which living things act and/or react in response to their environment |
| carnivores | animals that eat other animals |
| community | all the populations of organisms living together |
| competition | contest among organisms for the limited resources of an ecosystem |
| consumers | an organism in a community that must eat other organisms to get the energy it needs |
| decompose | decay or rot |
| decomposers | consumers that break down the tissue of dead organisms |
| disease | an illness or sickness |
| endangered | a population of organisms that is likely to become extinct very soon if not helped by people |
| energy pyramid | a diagram that shows the amount of energy available to pass on at each level of a food chain |
| extinct | a species that has died out |
| fertilizer | a substance that is added to the soil so that plants or crops will grow better |
| food chain | path of organisms interacting with one another by what they eat |
| food web | shows the interaction among many different food chains in a single ecosystem |
| habitat | an environment where an organism lives |
| habitat reduction | the decrease of organisms living in a designated area |
| herbivores | animals that eat plants |
| individual | a single organism in an environment |
| inherited behavior | an action passed on from parents to their young |
| niche | the role that an organism plays in its habitat |
| nutrients | a substance, such as protein or a mineral, that living things need for proper growth and good health |
| organisms | a single form of life, such as a plant, animal, or fungus, that is able to grow and reproduce |
| population | all the organisms of the same species that live in the same place at the same time |
| predators | an animal that hunts another animal for food |
| producer | an organism that makes its own food |
| survival | staying alive |
