A large region characterized by a specific type of climate and certain types of plant and animal communities.

Consists of all life on Earth and all parts of the Earth in which life exists, including land, water, and the atmosphere.

Individual living thing.

The number, and variety of living organisms in a given area, during a specific period of time.

A system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment.

Place where an organism lives.

An organism's particular role in an ecosystem, or how it makes its living.

All of the non-living parts of an ecosystem.

All of the living parts of an ecosystem.

Total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level.

A consumer that eats only plants.

An animal that eats other animals

A consumer that eats both plants and animals.

An organism that can make its own food.

An organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms.

An organism that makes its own food.

An organism that cannot make its own food, it gets food by consuming other living things, or their by-products.

An organism that is hunted, killed and eaten by another organism.

An animal that hunts, and kills other animals for food.

A group of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the same area.

A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

A diagram that shows the feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem; it contains multiple overlapping food chains.

A diagram that represents how energy in food flows from one organism to the next in an ecosystem.

A diagram that shows the amount of energy that moves from one trophic level to another in an ecosystem.

An interaction in which one organism captures and feeds on another organism to gain energy.

Ecological relationship in which organisms compete for available resources. There are 2 types: between organisms within a population, and between different populations.

A close relationship between two species that benefits at least one of the species.

A relationship between two species in which both species benefit.

A relationship between two organisms of different species where one benefits and the other is harmed.

A relationship between two organisms in which one organism benefits and the other is unaffected.

The study of how living things interact with each other and their environment

a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically.

A carnivore that feeds on the bodies of dead organisms

organism that eats dead organic matter

an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material.

a plant, fungus, or microorganism that lives on dead or decaying organic matter.

Each step in a food chain or food web

heterotrophs that consume producers

obtain their energy by eating primary consumers

eat secondary consumers

represents the amount of living organic matter at each trophic level

Ecological rule that states that no two species can occupy the same exact niche in the same habitat at the same time