Unit 7 Vocabulary Flash Cards
Ecosystem
Biome
Habitat
Niche
Desert
Grassland
Tropical rainforest
Deciduous forest
Deciduous tree
Conifer
Taiga
Climate
Dormant
Estuary
Large region or area that has the same climate
and communities of species (plants & animals);
ex: tropical rainforest, grassland, desert, ocean
Role a population plays in the ecosystem;
how it gets food, interacts with others;
ex: predator, competitor, producer, herbivore
A community of organisms and their nonliving
environment; all the biotic and abiotic in an area;
all the living and nonliving things in an area; ex:
ocean, field, pond, mountains, salt marsh
Place where organisms usually live and
provides their water, shelter, food, etc
Biome that has wet and dry seasons; wet season
near the equator is called the monsoon and wet
season farther from the equator has blizzards;
animal migrate to follow the water; tall grasses,
large herds of animals, best soil for growing crops
Biome that has very hot days and cool nights,
very little precipitation, most plants store water
and many animal estivate (sleep) during the day;
no real seasons
Biome that has 4 equal seasons – winter, spring,
summer, & fall; moderate amount of rainfall,
comes as snow in winter; land covered in tress
that drop their leaves in the fall and go dormant
until there is enough light in the spring; many
animals hibernate or migrate
Biome that has rain almost every day, constant
temperature all year long and all day and night,
very humid, close to the equator, area covered
in very tall trees, animal adapted to life in trees,
plants brightly colored
Tree that is shaped similar to a triangle with
needles for leaves; stay green all year round –
evergreen; reproduces using seeds inside of cones
Tree that lose it’s leaves during the fall and
goes dormant during the long winter; done
because there is not enough sunlight to
do photosynthesis in the late fall through
early spring months
The main abiotic factors that characterize a
biome; the long-term temperature patterns and
the amount of precipitation in the region as well
Means swamp forest, another name for the
coniferous or boreal forest since the frozen
ground thaws during the summer and
becomes a swamp
An ecosystem that is a mix of freshwater and
salt water; ex: mouth of a river emptying into
the ocean; bog, swamp
The process where deciduous trees lose their
leaves and shut down their systems for the long
winter months, done to conserve water since
there is not enough sunlight to do photosynthesis
Coniferous or boreal forest
Tundra
Marine
Freshwater
Precipitation
Nocturnal
Diurnal
Estuary
Monsoon
Canopy
Permafrost
wetland
Energy
Matter
Biome that stays cold all year long and the ground
is constantly frozen – called permafrost; very
little precipitation, very long winter, animals
have white fur and lots of body fat, many migrate
Biome that is cold most of the year with a short
time that is gets mild in the summer, long winters,
most of the precipitations falls as snow; animals
change fur color in winter; trees are triangular
shaped to keep snow off and makes cones,
needles for leaves, evergreens
Biome that has no salt in the water, the water can
be still or moving, animals come into contact
with humans, plants grow all over; ex: stream,
pond, lake
Biome known as the ocean; has salt water and
can get very deep so sunlight does not reach all
the way to the bottom; tides and current move
the water around; lots of big animals and plants
live at the top of this biome to get the sunlight
available
Animals that are awake and active during
the night and spend their days sleeping;
done since fewer predators are out at night
Part of the water cycle where water falls
from the clouds in the form of rain, snow,
sleet, hair, freezing rain, etc
An ecosystem that is a mix of fresh and
salt water; acts as a nursery for baby
animals to be born in and grow up
Animals that are awake and active during
the day and spend their nights sleeping
Upper level of a tropical rainforest where
all the leaves of the trees overlap; where
most of the animals live
Large rainstorm that happens in tropical
grasslands where it rains very hard for
many days in a row causing major floods
Area of land that is covered in water all or part
of the year; ex: bog, marsh, swamp
Permanently frozen ground or soil in the
tundra; stays frozen all year long with only
the top few inches thawing out in the summer
Anything that has mass and takes up spaces
Ability to do work and allows organisms to
use matter in life process and survive
Law of conservation of energy
Law of conservation of mass
Energy pyramid
Water cycle
Nitrogen cycle
Carbon cycle
Producer
Primary consumer
Secondary consumer
Tertiary consumer
Precipitation
Condensation
Transpiration
Evaporation
Law that says that matter isn’t created or
destroyed, it just changes form; ex: ice melts
into liquid water; sodium and chlorine combine
to form sodium chloride (table salt)
Law that says energy isn’t created or destroyed,
it just changes form; ex: plants change the sun’s
energy into glucose (chemical energy)
The movement of water between oceans,
the atmosphere, land, and living things;
precipitation, condensation, evaporation,
and transpiration
Chart used to show the flow of energy through
an ecosystem; there is less energy as you move
through the ecosystem as organisms are use up
the energy to live
The process where carbon moves between the
environment and living organisms through
photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and other
processes
The process where nitrogen is moving between
the environment and living things; nitrogen in the
atmosphere is turned into fertilizer by bacteria and
decomposer bacteria break down dead organisms
and waste and release nitrogen back into the air
The first consumer to eat the producer, an
herbivore; gets 10% of the producer’s energy
Organisms, like plants, that make their own
food and are found at the beginning of the
food chain or energy pyramid; the plants
transforms sun’s energy into chemical energy
and make a sugar called glucose
The third consumer in a food chain or energy
pyramid, it eats an animal; gets 0.1% of the
animal’s energy
The second consumer in a food chain or
energy pyramid, it eats an animal; gets 1%
of the animal’s energy
The process where water vapor (gas) changes
into liquid water droplets; in the water cycle it
forms a cloud in the sky
The process where water falls from the sky
to the land in the form of a liquid (rain) or
a solid (snow, sleet, hail, freezing rain)
The process where liquid water in ponds,
streams, river, oceans, etc are heated up and
turned into water vapor (gas) that goes up
into the atmosphere
The process where liquid water in plants are
released from the leaves and turned into water
vapor (gas) that goes up into the atmosphere
Photosynthesis
Cellular respiration
Fossil fuels
Combustion
Decomposition
Greenhouse effect
Eutrophication
Succession
Primary succession
Secondary succession
Pioneer species
Climax community
Catastrophic disturbance
Biodiversity
The process where animals or plants use oxygen
to break down glucose to make carbon dioxide,
water, and ATP (energy)
The process where producers take carbon
dioxide, water, and sunlight and turn it into
glucose and oxygen
The process of burning materials, including
fossil fuels and wood to create heat and
release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
Type of fuel formed by decomposing organisms
that were buried in the ground millions of years
ago; releases carbon dioxide into the air when
it is burned in combustion; ex: coal, oil,
gasoline, natural gas
The process where greenhouse gases, like
carbon dioxide, build up in the atmosphere
and trap the sun’s energy and heat up the planet
The process of breaking down dead organisms
and waste and returning the elements and
nutrients to the environment through the
nitrogen cycle
The slow change in an ecosystem from one form
to another, like a pond filling in and becoming
a field, or plants growing back in a forest after
a forest fire
The process where nutrients, like animal poop
and fertilizers, build up in water over time;
leads to algal blooms and dead zones
The process where an existing ecosystem goes
through changes and still has its soil; it changes
from one ecosystem to another, like a deciduous
forest becoming a boreal forest, or it grows back
after a catastrophic disaster like a volcanic
eruption, forest fire, land slide, hurricane, etc
The process where plants start to grow on
rock, where the is no soil; this could be caused
by a new volcanic island forming or a glacier
melting after thousands of year, pioneer species
need to create the soil first before larger plants
can grow there; it takes millions of year
An ecosystem that has been stable for many
hundreds of years and all the plants have grown
as tall as they are going to get; ex: deciduous
or boreal forest that has been undisturbed
for several hundred years
The first organisms to live in an uninhabited
area and start to turn the rock in to soil;
ex: lichens, mosses
The number and variety of species that live in
an area; the tropical rainforest has the greatest
number of different plants and animals so it has
the largest biodiversity of life
A natural disaster that destroys or damages part or
all of an ecosystem; ex: forest fire, avalanche,
blizzard, flood, mudslide, hurricane, tornado,
tsunami, rock slide, etc
Urbanization / urban sprawl
Habitat fragmentation
Erosion
Pollution
Stewardship
Conservation
Endangered species
Extinct species
Invasive species
Exotic species
Overfishing
Deforestation
Reforestation
Habitat destruction
The cutting a habitat in half and making it hard
an animal to get from one side to another; ex:
putting a road in the middle of a forest; building
a housing community in the middle of a grassland
The growth of cities out into the land
around them; also known as urban sprawl
Any unwanted change in the environment
caused by substances (like litter, waste, carbon
dioxide) or forms of energy (like heat, light)
The process where soil is carried away by
wind or water
The protection and wise use of natural resources;
ex: using fewer natural resources, reducing waste,
recycling
The careful and responsible management
of a resource
A species that has no more living members on
Earth, they have all died off, like the dinosaurs
A species that has very few members left on
Earth, it can become extinct very easily
A species that is not native to an area, it has
be introduced, or brought in from another
ecosystem
A species of plant or animal that is introduced
to an ecosystem and takes it over, it out competes
the native species for resources and kills them;
ex: kudzu in the southern US
The process of cutting down a forest or most
of the forest in an area
The process of destroying a habitat through
human use; ex: building houses, malls, roads,
cities, cutting down all the trees in the forest,
open pit mining, etc
The process of taking more fish out of the water
than nature can replace; can lead to the species
becoming endangered or extinct
The process of replanting all or most of a
forest