Biology Terms

4. - A substance used for destroying insects or other organisms. Overuse can kill beneficial organisms in the soil. Overuse can runoff into rivers and streams killing beneficial organisms in the water.
8. matter - anything that was alive and is now in or on the soil. For it to become organic matter, it must be decomposed into humus.
9. - Ingest (eat) food containing the sun’s energy. All Herbivores, Carnivores, Omnivores, Decomposers
11. - The concentration of a toxin (like a pesticide) in the tissues of organisms in a lower trophic level gets passed up to the next level when they get eaten. These toxins cannot be flushed out of the body, so each trophic level ends up with higher amounts of toxic material in their tissues.
12. - Microscopic plants that float among the other plankton in the upper layer of the oceans. Phyto means plant or plant-like. So they go through photosynthesis. Often the primary producer for ocean food webs
13. - Type of consumer that eats dead plants, animals and other organisms.
14. - Anything that eats or consumes other living organisms. All heterotrophs: they ingest food containing the sun’s energy. All Herbivores, Carnivores, Omnivores, Decomposers
18. - The total variety of organisms. The more different types of organisms = healthier ecosystem
19. sink - Anything that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. Examples include: plants, ocean and soil

1. - Also called: primary producer, producer, or PLANT. The beginning of a food chain
2. - the role a species plays in a community; its total way of life
3. - nonliving parts of the environment (i.e. temperature, soil, light, moisture, air currents
5. - the scientific study of interactions between organisms and their environments, focusing on energy transfer. The science of relationships
6. levels - Each link in a food chain is known as a trophic level. Trophic levels represent a feeding step in the transfer of energy and matter in an ecosystem. Goes from producer to consumer to decomposer
7. factor - any biotic or abiotic factor that restricts the existence of organisms in a specific environment. Amount of water, food, space, Temperature, Availability of mates
10. species - a non-native (from a different part of the world) organism that spreads and harms the environment, economy, or human health. They can be plants, animals, parasites, or diseases.
14. - The process of burning something
15. - all living organisms inhabiting the Earth
16. - the place in which an organism lives out its life
17. - all autotrophs (plants), they trap energy from the sun. Beginning of the food chain