Vocabulary 1
Ecosystem
A community of living organisms and their interactions with the nonliving parts of their environment, interacting as a system.
Omnivore
An animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter.
What happens when something higher on the food chains goes extinct?
The organisms lower on the food chain will increase in population.
What are coral?
Colonial organisms (composed of thousands of polyps)
Fixed in place/non-moving
Biotic Factors
The living parts of and ecosystem.
Producer
An organism that makes its own energy, usually through photosynthesis (light) or chemosynthesis (chemical reactions).
What happens when something lower on the food chain goes extinct?
The organisms higher on the food chain will not have anything to eat because the organisms that they eat will not have any food, causing the whole food chain to collapse.
Hard coral has tentacles in multiples of six while soft coral has eight tentacles.
Cnidarian
The biological classification category that includes coral polyps, jellyfish, anemones, and more.
Abiotic Factors.
The nonliving parts of an ecosystem. This includes the chemical and physical factors.
Consumer
An organism that obtains its energy from consuming other living organisms.
What is a network of food chains called?
A food web.
What has a mutallistic symbiotic relationship with coral polyps?
Zooxanthallae.
Nematocysts
Stinging cells within the tentacles of cnidarians used for defense and to stun prey.
Carnivore
An organism that gets its energy and nutrients from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, either through predation or scavenging.
Decomposer
Organisms that get their energy from breaking down dead or decaying matter.
As you go up the food chain...
...the more energy is needed and eaten.
What is commensalism?
When one organisms benefits and the other is not significantly affected.
Tentacles
Used to catch and/or draw prey into the stomach cavity;also used to clean out waste products.
Herbivore
An organism adapted to eating plant material as its diet.
Photosynthesis
the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water.
What happens when the primary producer goes extinct?
Every other organism that feeds on what eats it will go extinct.
What is parasitism?
When one organism benefits and the other is harmed or killed.
Calcium Carbonate
The substance secreted by coral polyps that hardens into a rock-like substance.