1. Ecosystems: Vocabulary
SOL 4.5

2. Behavioral Adaptation
Changes an animal makes to how it behaves or acts that help it meet a life need
Example = migration

3. Carnivore Consumer that eats other animals (meat)
Examples = Frogs, wolves, vultures, hyenas

4. Community
Populations of species that live in the same place at the same time together

5. Consumer Gets its energy from eating (consuming) other living things
Example = houses, humans, wolves

6. Decomposer Consumer that breaks down dead plants and animals
Examples = bacteria and fungi

7. Ecosystem
All the populations and the nonliving components in an environment that interact with each other.

8. Food Chain The path energy takes as animals eat each other
Example = daffodil  rabbit  to fox

9. Food Web
All of the food chains in a community

10. Habitat
Place or kind of place in which an animal or plant naturally lives

11. Herbivore Consumer that eats plants
Example = elephants and grasshoppers

12. Niche
The function that an organism performs in the food web of that community. A niche also includes everything else the organism does or needs in its environment.

13. Omnivore Consumer that eats both plants and animals
Examples = humans and bears

14. Physical (Structural ) Adaptation
Changes to an animal’s body that helps it meet a life need
Example = beak shape

15. Population
All the organisms of the same species that live in the same place at the same time

16. Predator Carnivores that hunt other animals
Examples = frogs and wolves

17. Producer Makes its own food using the sun’s energy
Example = oak tree and sunflower

18. Scavenger Carnivores that eat dead animals
Example = vultures and hyenas