Vocabulary Words Flow of Matter and Energy

Producer an organism that uses sunlight directly to make sugar which in turn makes energy

Consumer an organism that eats producers or other organisms for energy

Decomposer an organism that gets energy by breaking down the remains of dead organism and consuming or absorbing the nutrients

Plankton The collection of small or microscopic organisms, including algae and protozoans, that float or drift in great numbers in fresh or salt water, especially at or near the surface, and serve as food for fish and other larger organisms.

Phytoplankton consisting of free-floating algae, protists, and cyanobacteria. Phytoplankton form the beginning of the food chain for aquatic animals and fix large amounts of carbon, which would otherwise be released as carbon dioxide. phyto- a combining form meaning “plant”

Zooplankton a collection or mass of small or microscopic floating animals, including corals, rotifers, sea anemones, jellyfish. copepods, and krill, and microorganisms once classified as animals, such as dinoflagellates and other protozoans

Food Web A complex diagram representing the many energy pathways in a real ecosystem

Food Chain A diagram that represents how the energy in food molecules flows from one organism to the next

Energy Pyram id A diagram shaped like a triangle showing the loss of energy at each level of the food energy

Predator An organism that eats other organisms

Prey An organism that is eaten by another organism

Carnivore A consumer that eats animals

Omnivore A consumer that eats a variety of organisms

Herbivore A consumer that eats plants

Scavenger An animal that feeds on the bodies of dead animals

Host a living animal or plant from which a parasite obtains nutrition

Parasite an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.

Water cycle The cycle of evaporation and condensation that controls the distribution of the earth's water

Precipitation water that moves from the atmosphere to the land and ocean, including rain, snow, sleet and hail.

Evaporation the change of state from liquid to vapor

Condensation the conversion of water from the vapor state to a denser liquid or solid state

Transpiration the loss of water from plants leaves through opening called stomata

Ground water Water beneath the earth's surface

Carbon cycle the movement of atoms of carbon through the biosphere by photosynthesis, decomposition, and respiration

Photosynthesis The process in green plants where carbohydrates are made from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source. Photosynthesis also produces the sugars that feed the plant and release oxygen as a byproduct.

Decomposition the breakdown of dead materials into carbon dioxide and water

Respiration the exchange of gases between living cells and their environment

Combustion the process of burning, includes the burning of fossil fuels

Nitrogen cycle the circulation of nitrogen; nitrates from the soil are absorbed by plants which are eaten by animals that die and decay returning the nitrogen back to the soil

Nitrogen fixation the process of changing nitrogen gas into forms that plants can use.