Ecosystems and Food Webs Flashcards

Grade 6 · Science · Flashcards

Review vocabulary and concepts for ecosystems, food webs, and energy flow.

Flashcards

Ecosystem: All the living and nonliving things in an area interacting with each other.
Biotic factors: The living parts of an ecosystem (plants, animals, fungi, bacteria).
Abiotic factors: The nonliving parts of an ecosystem (water, sunlight, soil, temperature).
Producer (autotroph): An organism that makes its own food through photosynthesis; the base of every food chain.
Consumer (heterotroph): An organism that must eat other organisms to obtain energy.
Herbivore: An animal that eats only plants; a primary consumer.
Carnivore: An animal that eats other animals; a secondary or tertiary consumer.
Omnivore: An organism that eats both plants and animals.
Decomposer: An organism (fungi, bacteria) that breaks down dead matter and recycles nutrients.
Food chain: A linear sequence showing how energy passes from one organism to the next.
Food web: A network of overlapping food chains showing all feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
Trophic level: Each step in a food chain; only ~10% of energy transfers to the next level.
10% rule: Only about 10% of energy is passed on at each trophic level; the rest is lost as heat.
Biodiversity: The variety of life in an ecosystem; high biodiversity increases stability and resilience.
Trophic cascade: A chain reaction in an ecosystem caused by removing or adding a key species.