| A | B |
|---|
| autotroph | organism that can make it's own food |
| heterotroph | organism that must ingest food (can't make it) |
| photosynthesis | process of converting light energy to chemical energy |
| producer | the beginning of a food chain |
| consumer | the second organism in a food chain |
| decomposer | organism that eats dead and dying organisms |
| photoautotroph | organism that uses sunlight to make food |
| biotic | living characteristics of an environment (predators, food, etc.) |
| abiotic | nonliving characteristics of an environment (temperature, rainfall, etc.) |
| entropy | a measure of disorder |
| cellular respiration | the process organisms use to release energy from food |
| law of conservation of energy | energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted to different forms |
| chemosynthesis | process of converting inorganic molecules into sugar |
| energy cannot be created or destroyed | 1st law of thermodynamics |
| systems tend to move toward more disorder | 2nd law of thermodynamics |
| biosphere | zone of life on earth |
| ecosystem | All the organisms in a given area, along with the nonliving (abiotic) factors with which they interact. |
| habitat | The natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population. |
| energy | what flows through a system as one organism consumes another |
