Review Vocabulary
These are words that have been learned in Biology and/or Marine Biology
so should already be part of your science vocabulary. Be sure that you know them.
 Food Chain- A single link of organisms in a food web.
 Food Web- A group of organisms associated by a complex set of feeding relationships in
which the flow of food energy can be followed from primary producers through
consumers. A web shows a more complex relationship than a food chain.
 Adaptation- An inheritable structural or behavioral modification. A favorable adaptation
gives a species an advantage in survival and reproduction. An unfavorable adaptation
lessens a species’ ability to survive and reproduce.
 Niche- Description of an organism’s functional role in a habitat; its job.
 Community- The populations of all species that occupy a particular habitat and interact
within that habitat.
 Abiotic- refers to the non-living parts of an ecosystem.
 Biotic- living things in an ecosystem.
 Population- A group of individuals of the same species occupying the same area.
 Biomass- The mass of living material in a given area or volume of habitat.
 Habitat- The place where an individual or population of a given species lives.
 Autotroph- An organism that makes its own food by photosynthesis or chemosynthesis.
 Heterotroph- An organism that derives nourishment from other organisms because it is
unable to synthesize its own food molecules.
 Limiting Factors- A physical or biological environmental factor whose absence or
presence in an inappropriate amount limits the normal actions of an organism.
 Carrying Capacity- The size at which a particular population in a particular
environment will stabilize when its supply of resources-including nutrients, energy, and
living space-remains constant.
 Predator- An organism that eats a specific animal is called its predator.
 Prey- An organism consumed by a predator.
 Symbiosis- The co-occurrence of two species in which the life of one is closely
interwoven with the life of the other; mutualism, commensalism, or parasitism.
Herbivores - A plant eating organism.
 Carnivores- Animals that eat other animals.
 Omnivores- Organisms that eat both plants and animals.
 Algae- Collective term for nonvascular plants possessing chlorophyll and capable of
photosynthesis.
 Invertebrate- An animal lacking a backbone.
 Vertebrate- A chordate with a segmented backbone.
 Bacteria - Single-celled prokaryotes, organisms lacking membrane-bound organelles.
Classified in the Moneran Kingdom
 Protista - The kingdom of mostly singled-celled organisms with a nucleus to which
protozoa, diatoms, and dinoflagellates belong.
Producer- An organism that makes its own food through photosynthesis.
 Consumer- A heterotrophic organism.
 Detritus- Dead and decaying matter.
 Filter feeder-Organism that feeds by sieving small particulate material from the water
column.
 Detrivore- Organism that eat dead and decaying matter as an energy source.