Earth Science Vocabulary: Environmental Science
Producer: organism that uses energy (usually from the sun) to make food; these organisms form the
foundation of a food chain
Autotroph: another word describing producers; organisms able to make their own food
Consumer: organism not capable of making its own food; must rely on other organisms for a food
source
Heterotroph: another word describing consumers; organisms not able to make their own food
Herbivore: organism that consumes only plant material
Carnivore: organism that consumes other animals
Omnivore: organism that consumes both plants and animals
Symbiosis: relationship where two or more organisms live together; neither organism is harmed
Parasitism: relationship where one organism lives on or in another organism and harms the other
organism
Mutualism: relationship where two or more organisms live together and both/all benefit
Predator: organism that hunts other organisms for food
Prey: the hunted organism of a predator
Food chain: model showing how food and energy move through a system
Food web: model made up of multiple food chains that shows relationships between many types of
organisms
Anthropogenic: caused by humans; for example, many types of pollution are anthropogenic
Ecosystem: the living and nonliving components of an organism’s habitat
Habitat: physical location where an organism lives
Niche: the particular spot or level occupied by an organism
Adaptation: ways in which organisms change to survive in their environments
Ecology: study of relationships between organisms and other organisms and their nonliving habitat
Tropic level: the feeding step occupied by an organism in a food web
Community: collection of several populations that live in a common environment; a population is a
group of organisms of the same species
Biomagnification: This term is most often used when referring to pollutants in the environment. For
example, plants may take up toxins from ground water. A small animal eats these plants. Larger animals
eat the smaller animals, and this continues through the food web. The toxins build up in the larger
animals.
Bioaccumulation: This is different from biomagnification in that the term refers to individuals. A rabbit
eating contaminated carrots would accumulate the toxins in its tissues.