The Circle of Life
the two primary factors that define a particular climate
What are temperature and precipitation?
What is a carnivore?
(or predator)
the living parts of an ecosystem, such as plants or animals
What are biotic factors?
don't worry about bringing an umbrella when visiting this biome, though depending where it is, you may need a coat
What is a desert?
parasites love the nourishment they get from this organism, who is harmed in the process
What is the host?
this occurs when organisms either of the same species or of different species try to use the same resource
What is competition?
an animal that eats only plants
What is a herbivore?
the sum of all the regions where life exists on Earth
What is the biosphere?
these organisms don't worry about getting food, because they can make their own
What are producers?
(or autotrophs)
ocean dwellers that love light must live in this thin upper layer of the water
What is the photic zone?
4 factors that affect temperature and precipitation (and therefore the climate) of a biome?
What are seasons, latitude, elevation, and bodies of water?
a depiction of the overlapping paths that energy can take through an ecosystem
What is a food web?
the level of the ecological pyramid where you will always find the producers
What is the bottom?
(or base)
A lion never worries about being hunted because it is always the predator and never the prey, putting it at the top of this diagram, which shows how energy passes through an ecosystem
What is the food chain?
(or food web, or ecological pyramid)
organisms love to participate in type of symbiosis, where both organisms benefit
What is mutualism?
The climate of this biome, the smallest on the planet, is dry summers and cool, wet winters, and the plant life is dominated by shrubs with waxy leaves
What is a chaparral?
a carnivore that eats recently dead animals
What is a scavenger?
the term for organisms like crabs and coral that live on the ocean floor
What are benthic organisms?
these consumers don't worry about what's on the lunch menu, because they'll eat either plants or other animals
What are omnivores?
If you love fall trees and spring flowers, you should live in this biome
What is a deciduous forest?
the term biodiversity considers these two things
What is number of species (richness) and proportionality of species (evenness)?
the position occupied by an organism on an ecological pyramid (i.e. the term for the levels of the pyramid)
What is a tropic level?
one of the few types of trees that you might find on a savanna
What is a baobab tree?
the type of symbiosis in which neither organism helps or worries the other
What is neutralism?
decomposers love to eat this, which is dead plant and animal material
What is detritus