Ecosystems Vocab

2. observations that can be safely made using your five senses
5. dead or decomposing material
8. Matter that is cycled between the living and nonliving parts of an environment, like photosynthesis
10. Living organisms in an ecosystem
13. observations that involve using numbers gained from measurements
15. - the one variable that is changed by a scientist
16. Organisms that make food from nonliving sources
18. eats dead organisms
19. Organisms that secrete chemicals that break down dead material and then absorb the nutrients directly
20. The amount of energy traveling in a food chain
21. A system of interlocking and interdependent food chains to decomposers

1. Linear Progression of energy transfer from producers to decomposers
3. All the living organisms in a given area, interacting with each other, and with the nonliving parts of the environment
4. Eats both plants and animals
6. A property of which objects can be transferred to other objects or converted into different forms
7. Organisms that must eat other organisms to survive
8. An organism that feeds on the flesh of another organism
9. Non living objects in an ecosystem
11. Drawing a conclusion based on facts or observations
12. Variable what scientists are observing or measuring to see how the independent variable affects it
14. An animal that feeds on plants
17. A set of interacting objects that work together from a unified whole