| A | B |
|---|
| biodiversity | The number of speices living in an ecosystem |
| habitat | The place where a particular population of a species lives |
| abiotic | The physical aspects of a habitat |
| ecology | The study of the interactions of living organisms with each other and their physical environment |
| biotic | The living factors of a habitat |
| community | All the different species that live together in a habitat |
| pioneer species | The first, fast-growing plants to live in a new habitat |
| succession | The regular progression of species replacement |
| producers | Organisms that first capture energy and make food |
| consumers | Those organisms that must eat other organisms to obtain energy |
| food chain | The path of energy through the trophic levels |
| trophic level | Which one an organism belongs to depends on how it gets its energy |
| decomposers | These organisms recycle nutrients back into the environment |
| detritivores | Organisms that get theri energy from dead bodies and waste |
| herbivores | Animals that eat plants |
| omnivores | Organisms that eat plant and animal matter |
| carnivores | Animals that eat herbivores |
| food web | An interconnected group of food chains |
| biogeochemical cycle | The pathway of a substance when it enters living organisms, stays for a while, then returns to the non-living environment |
| ground water | Water retained beneath the surface of the Earth |
| transpiration | When water evaporates out of plants |
| combustion | When carbon returns to the environment through burning |
| denitrification | the conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gas |
