Ecosystem Vocab Flashcards
A process where plants use sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to produce glucose (sugar)
Photosynthesis
Another word for Sugar molecules or food
Carbohydrates
A plant’s organelle responsible for capturing sunlight to make sugar
Chloroplast
A green pigment found inside a plant’s leaves
Chlorophyll
Process where organisms use oxygen to break down food (sugar) to produce energy
Cellular respiration
An organism that makes its own food
Producer
Another word for producer
Autotrophs
Organisms that get their energy by eating other organisms
Consumers
Another word for consumer
Heterotrophs
Plant eaters
Herbivores
Meat eaters
Carnivores
Eaters of everything
Omnivores
Consumers that get their food from breaking down dead organisms
Decomposers
A sequence where energy is transferred from one organism to the next as each organism eats another organism
Food chain
A diagram that shows many feeding relationships in an ecosystem
Food web
Each step in the transfer of energy through a food chain or food web
Trophic level
How is energy transferred?
Plant uses energy from sunlight to make sugar and then is then passes on to consumers
Describe one way consumers
Depends on producers: cows need to eat grass to get energy
List two types of consumers
Primary consumer (cow) and secondary consumer (lion)
