Ecosystem Basics
All the living and nonliving things interacting in a specific area make up this system.
What is an ecosystem?
This organism eats producers and is usually the first consumer in a food chain.
What is a primary consumer?
The process where liquid water turns into water vapor due to heat.
What is evaporation?
Plants remove this gas from the atmosphere during photosynthesis.
What is carbon dioxide?
This gas makes up about 78% of Earth’s atmosphere and is essential for life.
What is nitrogen?
These nonliving factors in an ecosystem include sunlight, temperature, and water.
What are abiotic factors?
Energy moves through an ecosystem in this step-by-step feeding relationship.
What is a food chain?
When water vapor cools and forms clouds, this process occurs.
What is condensation?
Animals release this gas back into the atmosphere during respiration.
What is carbon dioxide?
This process converts atmospheric nitrogen into forms plants can use.
What is nitrogen fixation?
Plants and algae belong to this group because they make their own food using sunlight.
What are producers?
Only about this percentage of energy passes from one trophic level to the next.
What is 10%?
Rain, snow, sleet, and hail are examples of this stage of the water cycle.
What is precipitation?
This process in plants produces oxygen as a by-product.
What is photosynthesis?
These bacteria in soil and plant roots help convert nitrogen into usable compounds.
What are nitrogen-fixing bacteria?
Organisms like fungi and bacteria that break down dead matter are called these.
What are decomposers?
This diagram shows multiple interconnected food chains in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
This process occurs when plants release water vapor through their leaves.
What is transpiration?
Burning fossil fuels releases large amounts of this element into the atmosphere.
What is carbon?
When decomposers return nitrogen to the soil from dead organisms, this process occurs.
What is ammonification?
This term describes the role or job an organism has within its ecosystem.
What is ecological niche? (buzzword👀)
Organisms at the very top of a food chain with no natural predators are called this.
What are apex predators?
Water soaking into the ground to replenish groundwater is called this.
What is infiltration?
Long-term storage of carbon occurs in these underground fuels like coal and oil.
What are fossil fuels?
This process converts nitrates back into nitrogen gas released into the atmosphere.
What is denitrification?