Ecosystems and Food Chains Flashcards
Define habitat
Place animals live
Define ecoystem
The natural system made from biotic and abiotic features
Define biome
An ecosystem on a global scale.
Examples of biomes
forest, grassland, desert and tundras
Define fauna
animal life in an area
Define flora
plant life in an area
Define producer
an organism that makes it own food through photosynthesis
Define consumer
an organism that gets its energy by eating other organisms
Define decomposers
an organism that gets its energy by breaking down dead material
Define food chain
it shows what eats what
Define respiration
release of energy from glucose
Define biomass
amount of organic matter produced
Define deciduous (trees)
trees that shed their leaves annually
Define coniferous (trees)
trees that do not shed their leaves
Define herbivore
organism that eats plant only
Define carnivore
organism that eats animals only
Define omnivore
organism that eats animals and plants
Define hibernating
being in an inactive dormant state where your metabolism and heart rate decrease
Define nocturnal
being active at night
Define leaching
leaching is the loss of soluble substances (e.g. minerals from plants) from the soil, due to rain .
Define foodweb
shows what eats what and how they overlap
Define fallout pathway
Death of flora and fauna and the addition of the nutrient to the litter store due to breakdown by decomposers.
Explain the nutrient cycle?
. Trees that shed leaves.
. The leaf litter gets broken down by decomposers into nutrients
. Nutrients get infiltrated into the soil with the help of precipitation
. some nutrients is leached, which is the loss of plant nutrients from the soil, due to rain and irrigation.
. Some nutrient flows as a runoff
. Nutrients are take up by plants for growth through uptake pathway
Define uptake pathway
The action of plants taking nutrients from the soil via their root system.
