Energy Flow
This shows how energy decreases from producers to top predators in an ecosystem.
Energy Pyramid
An organism that eats other organisms for energy.
Heterotroph
An organism that eats dead plants and animals.
Detritivore
The first organisms to grow in a new or damaged area.
Pioneer Species
Liquid water turning into water vapor.
Evaporation
These organisms make their own food using sunlight.
Photoautotroph
An animal that eats meat.
Carnivore
The process where decomposers turn nitrogen in dead matter into ammonia.
Ammonification
Plants releasing water vapor from their leaves.
Transpiration
Water vapor cooling and forming clouds.
Condensation
Animals that eat plants belong to this consumer level.
Primary Consumers
Animals that eat the primary consumers.
Secondary Consumer
The amount of living matter in an ecosystem.
Biomass
The process plants use to make food using sunlight.
Photosynthesis
Cells using oxygen to release energy from food.
Respiration
The feeding levels in a food chain are called this.
Trophic Levels
Animals at the top of the food chain that eat secondary consumers.
Tertiary Consumer
When organisms take in and use nutrients from food.
Assimilation
Plants and evaporation together releasing water into the atmosphere.
Evapotranspiration
The movement of energy through a food chain.
Energy Flow
What combines water loss from soil surfaces (evaporation) and plant transpiration, driven by solar energy, wind, and air moisture?
Evapotranspiration
The rate at which ecosystems generate biomass, primarily through photosynthesis by plants, algae, and bacteria converting solar energy into chemical energy?
Productivity
microscopic, plant-like organisms that form the base of the marine food chain and produce roughly half of Earth's oxygen?
Phytoplankton
Ancient bacteria found in aquatic environments worldwide.
Cyanobacteria
rain, snow, sleet, hail, and freezing rain, forming from water vapor condensing and falling as liquid or frozen drops, this is called...
Precipitation