Food Webs & Food Chains
Systems
Types of Organisms
Environmental Factors
Other Key Terms
Ecosystem (ecological system)- a part of an environment which contains organisms and their interactions to the physical environment.
Energy Pyramid- a diagram that illustrates the transfer of energy through a food web or chain. As you go up the energy pyramid, the amount of energy available decreases.
Food Chain- an illustration of the relationship between a prey and predator (who eats what).
Food Web- a complex illustration showing more relationships between more organisms compared to a food chain.
Carnivores- heterotrophs that eat other animals.
Producers- also autotrophs, photosynthetic organisms that store the sun's energy during the process and provides food energy for a majority of living things.
Consumers- also heterotrophs, organisms that get a source of energy from eating other organisms.
Decomposers- organisms that consume dead organisms and their wastes. By doing this, decomposers recycle material that can be used by producers and thus restarts the cycle.
Herbivores- heterotrophs that eat plants.
Autotrophs- photosynthetic organisms that make their own food (self-feeders), also known as producers.
Heterotrophs- organisms that acquire energy from eating other organisms, also consumers.
Abiotic- nonliving influences in an ecosystem.
Predators- organisms that kill and eat other organisms.
Preys- organisms that are killed for food.
Biotic- living things in an ecosystem that interact with each other and the environment.
Carrying Capacity- the number of organisms of any single species that an ecosystem can support.
Competition- the struggle of resources among organisms.
Scavengers- consumers that eat dead organisms, known as clean-up organisms (NOT decomposers, who break down dead bodies and waste).
Limiting Factors- factors in the environment that limit the size of populations.
Environment- every living and nonliving thing that surrounds an organism.
Habitat- the specific environment that a species lives in, their home.
Population- all the organisms of a species that live in the same area.
Biosphere- all of Earth's ecosystems collectively.
Finite- limited.
Ecological Niche- the role that each species plays in an ecosystem.
Parasites- organisms that attack other live organisms although they rarely kill them. Parasites usually live on or in the body of their host and use them to live.
Hosts- Organisms that are being attacked by parasites and their body is being used by unintentionally providing a home for its parasite.