| A | B |
|---|
| abiotic | non-living; refers to the things in an ecosystem like the sun, rocks, air, etc. |
| adaptation | anything that helps an organism fit better in its niche |
| biome | a large, land ecosystem |
| biotic | living or was once alive |
| brackish | refers to water that is part fresh water, part salt water |
| carbon dioxide | the gas used by plants in photosynthesis; animals exhale it |
| carnivore | meat-eater |
| chaparral | brushland; a biome which has long, hot summers with little rainfall |
| chert | = a hard sedimentary rock formed primarily of silica |
| consumer | an organism that feeds directly or indirectly on producers |
| decomposer | an organism that eats dead or decaying matter and turns it into nutrients for producers to use |
| ecology | the science concerned with the relationship of living things to each other and their environment |
| ecosystem | a community of living things and the environment in which they live |
| food chain | a sequence showing who eats whom |
| food web | a number of interconnected food chains |
| habitat | the place in which a plant or animal lives |
| geology | the study of the structure and the history of the earth |
| herbivore | plant-eater (a primary consumer) |
| igneous | refers to rock formed by the hardening of magma |
| indigenous | that which is native to a particular area; living naturally in a particular place |
| interdependence | relying on one another for survival |
| metamorphic | refers to rock that has undergone a change through heat and pressure |
| niche | the place in an ecosystem that an organism fits; this refers to its place in the food chain and everything the organism does that affects its environment |
| omnivore | a meat and plant-eater |
| oxygen | the gas that animals need to breathe to live |
| predator | an animal that feeds itself by capturing and eating other animals |
| prey | an animal caught for food |
| producer | an organism that makes its food inside its own body by photosynthesis |
| primary consumer | a consumer that eats producers only |
| respiration | the process by which an organism exchanges gases with its environment; in animals with lungs, it’s known as breathing |
| secondary consumer | a consumer that eats primary consumers |
| scavenger | an animal that will eat almost anything, especially dead and decaying things |
| sedimentary | refers to rock formed of materials moved from one place to another |
| symbiosis | two organisms living together in a way that benefits at least one of the organisms |
