Ecozone: geographic areas which share common living and nonliving elements.
Ecosystem: geographic area in which plants, animals, people, air, water, soil and rocks interact as a system.
Biotic: the living elements in an ecozone like plants, animals and people
Abiotic: the non-living elements in an ecozone like air, water, soil and rocks.
Interact: how plants, animals, and people use other living and nonliving elements to survive.
Example: School-yard ecosystem: possible ecosystems in your school yard; rotting log, flower garden, under a rock, wooded area, patch of grass, under a portable, mud puddle, in a leaf pile.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (2)
Needs of all organisms: to survive, all organisms need air, water, food, shelter and the ability to interact with their ecosystem.
Organism: a single living individual – any living plant or animal.
Population: a group of individuals belonging to the same species, either plant or animal.

Community: the biotic interactions in a small geographic area.
Interactions occur between plants and animals.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (3)
Producers: are organisms ex. Plants, algae that use sunlight to make their own food. Role – to produce oxygen, to be food for organisms higher in the food chain.
Consumers: are organisms that feed on others below them in the food chain. Role – to eat organisms below them in the food chain, to reduce the numbers of rapidly multiplying organisms.
Scavengers: are organisms that eat dead or decaying plants or animals – ex rats, mice, racoons, crows, seagulls, flies
Decomposers: are organisms like centipedes and microorganisms that break down the remains of dead plants and animals. Role – to return organic matter to the soil as inorganic matter.
Microorganisms: or microbes that can only be seen through a microscope, ex fungi, bacteria, viruses, and protozoans.
Food Chain: shows the way in which energy is passed between organisms in the ecosystem.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (4)
Bacteria: single cell organisms without a nucleus.
Viruses: about 100 times smaller that bacteria.

Fungi: are parasites that feed on organic matter.
Parasites: plants or animals living in or on another plant or animal, draws nutrition directly from it.
Protozoans: single cell organisms with a nucleus.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (5)
Food Web: a is made up of several food chains
Food Chain: shows the way in which energy is passed between organisms in an ecosystem
Omnivore: animals that eat both plants and animals, ex the
Grizzly Bear are called omnivores.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (6)
Aquatic plant – life: plants that live in the water ex, water lilies.
Ice – bridge: occurs when a lake freezes in the winter connecting the mainland to the island, or bank to bank.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (7)
Respiration: the release of energy in a living organism.

Plant respiration: occurs when stored food (sugars, starches) plus oxygen are absorbed while releasing energy, water (often as water vapour) and carbon dioxide.
Animal respiration: occurs when stored food (glucose in muscles) plus oxygen are absorbed while releasing energy, water (often as perspiration) and carbon dioxide.
Ecosystems Vocabulary (8)
Biosphere: the area occupied by living organisms, in the sea, in the atmosphere, on land, under the soil.
Evaporation: occurs when the suns heat evaporates water from oceans, soils and plants.
Condensation: occurs when the water vapour rises into the atmosphere and is cooled to form tiny water drops.
Precipitation: occurs when water droplets or ice crystals inside the cloud become too heavy and fall as rain, hail or snow to the ground.
Runoff: occurs when clouds release rain, hail or snow and it falls to the ground and slowly flows back to the oceans in streams and water tables.