| A | B |
|---|
| Abiotic Factor | A nonliving part of an ecosystem (water, air, rocks, dirt, etc.). |
| Amphibian | An animal capable of living on both land and water. |
| Biome | One of Earth’s largest ecosystems, with its own kind of climate, soil, plants, and animals. |
| Carbon Cycle | The continuous exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen among living things. |
| Climax Community | The final stage of succession of an area (unless a major change happens). |
| Community | All the living things in an ecosystem. |
| Consumers | An organism that does not produce its own food. It requires energy from an outside source, so it consumes a producer or another consumer. |
| Deciduous Forest | A forest biome with many kinds of trees that lose their leaves each year. |
| Desert | A sandy or rocky biome, with little precipitation and little plant life. |
| Ecology | The study of how living and nonliving things interact. |
| Endangered Species | A species that is in danger of becoming extinct. |
| Extinct | A species that has died out completely. |
| Food Web | The overlapping food chains in an ecosystem. |
| Fresh Water | Water that does not contain salt. 3% of the world’s water is freshwater. |
| Grasslands | A biome where grasses, not trees, are the main plant life. |
| Herbivore | An animal that eats plants, algae, and other producers. |
| Individual | One animal of a species. |
| Lake | A body of freshwater. Lakes are fed by rivers, creeks, and/or springs. |
| Mutualism | A relationship between 2 kinds of organisms that benefits both organisms. |
| Nitrogen Cycle | The continuous trapping of nitrogen gas into compounds in the soil and its return to the air. |
| Ocean | A large body of saltwater. 97% of the water available on earth is saltwater. |
| Ozone Layer | A layer of ozone gas in the atmosphere that screens out much of the sun’s UV rays. |
| Photosynthesis | The process plants use to make their food (energy) using energy from the sun, carbon dioxide, water, and chlorophyll found within their cells. |
| Pioneer Species | The first species living in an otherwise lifeless area. |
| Pond | A body of fresh water. Ponds are smaller than lakes and are usually formed by runoff. |
| Predator | An animal that hunts other animals for food. |
| Producers | An organism able to make its own food from the sun’s energy. |
| Renewable Resources | A resource that can be replaced within a short amount of time. |
| Scavenger | A meat-eating animal that feeds on the remains of dead animals. |
| Solar Energy | Energy from the sun. |
| Taiga | A cool forest biome of conifers in the supper northern hemisphere. |
| Threatened Species | A species that is in danger of becoming an endangered species. |
| Tundra | Large, treeless plain in the arctic region, where the ground is frozen all year long. |
| Wind Energy | Energy from the wind’s power. |
