Category 1
living parts of an ecosystem. Includes things that are alive, WERE alive but are now dead, and things that come from something living.
Biotic
a collection of the same species of organism in a particular area.
Population
organisms (bacteria/fungi/etc.) that eat and breakdown dead organisms and release nutrients back into the soil.
Decomposer
a specific order of organisms where one organism feeds on the preceding one.
Food Chain
the first species to grow and colonize an area of land
Pioneer Species
non-living parts of the ecosystem. Includes things that are NOT alive, NEVER were alive and never will be alive, and things that do not come from something living.
Abiotic
all the living things in a particular area.
Community
an organism at the top of the food web with no natural predators above it.
Nothing regularly hunts and eats them, they do that to other organisms.
Top/Apex Predator
a pyramid that shows how energy flows through a community.
Energy Pyramid
The variety of life in the world, or a certain ecosystem or habitat
Biodiversity
a small, localized habitat within a larger ecosystem, as a decomposing log in a forest, having conditions that sustain a limited range of animals and plants
Microhabitat
a collection of all the biotic factors in an area as well as the abiotic factors they depend on.
Ecosystem
the part of the earth where life exists.
Biosphere
the process of one community in an ecosystem being replaced over time by a more advanced community.
Ecological Succession
an ecosystem that has developed over time and reached a stage where its number of plant and animal species (and other organisms) does not change much from year to year, or remains stable.
Climax community
A biome is a large region of Earth that has a certain climate and certain types of living things.
Biome
organisms that make their food (autotrophs), they do not eat other organisms.
Producer
the process in which plants make sugar and oxygen from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water (this happens in chloroplasts).
Photosynthesis
starts on bare rock, soil is formed from plants that begin to grow, in time, larger plants grow and animals move in.
Primary Succession
elements of an ecosystem that control the number of organisms that can live/survive in that ecosystem (amount of food, water, shelter, etc.).
Limiting factors
an individual and complete life form made of systems working together.
Organism
organisms that must eat other organisms for food/energy.
Consumer
a system of overlapping food chains with arrows that show the direction energy flows in an ecosystem.
Food Web
when an ecosystem that already had soil and a community of organisms changes (or gets destroyed: fire, flood, etc.) and then a new ecosystem takes over.
Secondary Succession