Main Character Energy (Earth's Spheres & Energy)
The sphere that contains the layer of gases surrounding our planet.
What is the Atmosphere?
A consumer that eats only plants.
What is an Herbivore?
The process in the water cycle where liquid water turns into a gas.
What is Evaporation?
A relationship where one individual eats another for food, like a lynx eating a snowshoe hare.
What is Predation?
The defining abiotic feature of this aquatic biome (which includes lakes, rivers, and ponds) is that it contains almost zero salt.
What is Freshwater?
All living things on the planet make up this highly fragile sphere.
What is the Biosphere?
Organisms that make their own food, essentially connecting the abiotic world to the biotic world.
What are Producers?
These organisms break down dead plants and animals, successfully recycling carbon back into the environment.
What are Decomposers?
A symbiotic relationship where one individual lives in or on another organism, benefiting while causing the host harm.
What is Parasitism?
This freezing terrestrial biome is characterized by permafrost, very little rain, and low-growing shrubs.
What is the Tundra?
The process by which producers use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to create sugar.
What is Photosynthesis?
Animals like hyenas and vultures that feed on the remains of already dead animals instead of hunting fresh prey.
What are Scavengers?
The specific process where water evaporates directly from the leaves of plants into the atmosphere.
What is Transpiration (or Evapotranspiration)?
A type of relationship where both individuals benefit, like nitrogen-fixing bacteria and plant roots.
What is Mutualism?
Based on a climate graph, terrestrial biomes are determined primarily by these two main abiotic factors.
What are Average Temperature and Average Precipitation (Rainfall)?
This chemical process, performed by both producers and consumers, breaks down sugar to release energy.
What is Cellular Respiration?
he specific scientific term for the position or "step" an organism occupies in a food chain (e.g., primary consumer, secondary consumer).
What is a Trophic Level?
Special soil bacteria and lightning strikes help transform this abundant atmospheric gas into nitrates and nitrites so plants can use it.
What is Nitrogen?
When two different species, like a fox and a coyote, fight over the exact same food source, it is called this.
What is Interspecific Competition?
A nutrient-rich, highly productive aquatic biome located where a fast-flowing freshwater river meets the saltwater of the ocean.
What is an Estuary?
Because they rely on the exact same molecules—just in reverse—photosynthesis and cellular respiration are known as this type of paired process.
What are Complementary Processes?
This two-word term describes the specific role a species plays in its ecosystem, including what it eats, when it sleeps, and how it behaves.
What is an Ecological Niche?
These specific types of bacteria complete the nitrogen cycle by taking soil compounds and releasing nitrogen gas back into the atmosphere.
What are Denitrifying bacteria?
The maximum population size of a species that a specific environment can sustain over time, represented by a dotted line on a population graph.
What is Carrying Capacity?
A deep lake that is clear, cold, and naturally low in nutrients and photosynthetic life is classified using this scientific term.
What is Oligotrophic?