Economic Vocabulary

Question 1

Energy pyramid

Answer 1

A model that shows the available amount of energy in each tropic layer in a ecosystem.

Question 2

Food Chain

Answer 2

A model that shows many different feeding relationships among living things

Question 3

Decomposer

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Food chain

Answer 4

A hierarchical series of organisms each dependent on the next as a source of food.

Question 5

Coniferous

Answer 5

any of an order (Coniferales) of mostly evergreen trees and shrubs having usually needle-shaped or scalelike leaves and including forms

Question 6

Consumer

Answer 6

a person who purchases goods and services for personal use.

Question 7

Biome

Answer 7

a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat, e.g., forest or tundra.

Question 8

Deciduous

Answer 8

(of a tree or shrub) shedding its leaves annually

Question 9

Ecology

Answer 9

the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

Question 10

Cycle

Answer 10

a series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order.

Question 11

Nitrogen Cycle

Answer 11

the series of processes by which nitrogen and its compounds are interconverted in the environment and in living organisms, including nitrogen fixation and decomposition.

Question 12

Biotic factors

Answer 12

The parts of an ecosystem that are not alive, like rocks, weather, and sunlight, are the abiotic factors. Biotic and abiotic factors affect the organisms in an ecosystem. Biotic factors may include things like predation, disease, competition, parasitism, consumption, and symbiosis.

Question 13

Water Cycle

Answer 13

The water cycle is called the hydrologic cycle. In the hydrologic cycle, water from oceans, lakes, swamps, rivers, plants, and even you, can turn into water vapor. Water vapor condenses into millions of tiny droplets that form clouds. Clouds lose their water as rain or snow, which is called precipitation.

Question 14

Abiotic Factor

Answer 14

a nonliving condition or thing, as climate or habitat, that influences or affects an ecosystem and the organisms in it: Abiotic factors can determine which species of organisms will survive in a given environment. Compare biotic factor. Contemporary definitions for abiotic factor.

Question 15

Producer

Answer 15

a person, company, or country that makes, grows, or supplies goods or commodities for sale.

Question 16

Carbon Cycle

Answer 16

the series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment, chiefly involving the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to the atmosphere through respiration, the decay of dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels.

Question 17

Predator

Answer 17

an animal that naturally preys on others.

Question 18

Prey

Answer 18

an animal that is hunted and killed by another for food.

Question 19

Succession

Answer 19

a number of people or things sharing a specified characteristic and following one after the other.