Ch 36 Vocabulary
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Created by:
fhsbiology on September 8, 2011
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24 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 producer | anything capable of producing its own food, such as plants convert energy from sunlight into chemical energy |
| consumer | organism that relies on other organisms for its energy and food supply; also called a heterotroph |
| decomposer | organism that breaks down and obtains energy from dead organic matter |
| trophic level | feeding level in an ecosystem |
| food chain | pathway of food transfer from one trophic level to another |
| herbivore | organisms that are adapted to eat plant-based foods |
| carnivore | An animal or plant that requires a staple diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue through predation or scavenging. |
| omnivore | organism that obtains energy by eating both plants and animals |
| primary consumer | consumer that feeds directly on consumers |
| secondary consumer | Consumer that eats primary consumers |
| tertiary consumer | consumer that eats secondary consumers |
| detritus | Matter that has been eroded or disintegrated |
| food web | Pattern of feeding in an ecosystem consisting of interconnected and branching food chains |
| energy pyramid | diagram representing energy loss from one level to another |
| biomass pyramid | diagram representing the biomass in each trophic level of an ecosystem |
| pyramid of numbers | representation of the number of individual organisms in each trophic system of an ecosystem |
| deforestation | The process of stripping the land of its trees |
| greenhouse effect | process by which atmospheric gases trap heat close to Earth's surface and prevent it from escaping into space |
| global warming | a rise in average global temperatures |
| eutrophication | rapid growth of algae in bodies of water, due to high levels of nitrogen and often phosphate |
| acid rain | rain containing nitric and sulfuric acids |
| pollution | release of harmful materials into the environment |
| biological magnification | process by which pollutants become more concentrated in successive trophic levels of a food web |
| ozone | a form of oxygen that has three oxygen atoms in each molecule instead of two. protects us from dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun |
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