| A | B |
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| ecology | The study of the interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment |
| ecosystem | The interacting system that encompasses a community and its nonliving, physical environment. In an ecosystem, all of the biological, physical and chemical components of an area from a complex interacting network of energry flow and materials cycling. |
| photosynthesis | The biological process that captures light energy and transforms it into the chemical energy of organic molecules (such as glucose), which are manufactured from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis is performed by plants, algae, and several kinds of bacteria. |
| estuaries | Coastal bodies of water that connects to the ocean, in which fresh water from a river mixes with saltwater from the ocean. |
| species | A group of similar organisms that are able to interbreed with one another but unable to interbreed with other sorts of organisms |
| population | A group of organisms of the same species that live in the same geographical area at the same time |
| biotic | of or relating to something alive |
| abiotic | of or relating to something nonliving |
| community | An assemblage or associations of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area. |
| biosphere | All of Earth's living organisms and their interactions with each other, the air, water, land, and atmosphere. |
| atmosphere | The gaseous envelope surrounding Earth |
| lithosphere | The soil and rock of Earth's crust |
| hydrosphere | Earth's supply of water (both liquid and frozen, fresh and salfty) |
| potential energy | energy stored in a system of forcefully interacting physical entities |
| kinetic energy | The energy of a body that results from motion. |
| thermodynamics | the branch od physics that deals with energy and its various forms and transformations. |
| entropy | a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. |
| producers | Convert energy from the enviornment into a useable form, also called autotrophs, these are typically plants and bacteria |
| autotroph | organisms that manufacture organic molecules from simple inorganic substances |
| consumers | these consume other organisms for their source of energy, also called heterotrophs, this category includes: herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and detritivores |
| heterotroph | another name from heterotrophs; animals that use the bodies of other organisms as a source of food energy and bodybuilding materials |
| primary consumer | An organism that consumes producers, also called a herbivore |
| secondary consumer | An organism that consumes primary consumers |
| detritus | waste or debris of any kind. |
| biomass | Amount of organic material made from living or recently living organisms that contains stored energy |
| primary productivity | the rate a which energy accumulates |
