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Adaptation - A characteristic or behavior that helps a plant or animal live and survive in its surroundings.
Biome - The community of animal or plant life living together in a particular climate.
Carnivores - An animal that kills and feeds on other animals. (Predator)
Climate - The average weather conditions of an area over many years, as measured by temperature, wind speed, and precipitation.
Community - A group of plants and animals that interact in a common location.
Competition - the struggle among organisms for food, water, space, etc.
Coniferous Forest - Made up of largely evergreen, or cone-bearing, trees and shrubs.
Consumers - Organisms that get their food energy by eating other organisms.
Deciduous Forest - Made up largely of trees that seasonally shed their leaves.
Decomposers - Organisms such as fungi and bacteria that break down dead animal and plant matter into organic and inorganic material.
Desert - a dry, sandy area that receives less than 50 centimeters of rain per year.
Drought - A period of dryness, that when prolonged, causes damage to crops; a shortage of water.
Ecology - The study of the interrelationships of living and non-living organisms within an ecosystem.
Ecosystem - A community of living and non-living organisms.
Environment - The surroundings in which a person, plant or animal lives, including the air, water, and land.
Food Chain - The cycle of food consumption that begins and ends with plants.
Grassland - Open plain and meadow growth largely free of trees.
Herbivores - plant eaters; animals that get their food energy from plant life.
Hibernation - A sleep-like state during which body temperature and metabolism of an animal is lowered.
Omnivores - Organisms that consume both plants and animals.
Organism - a living being.
Photosynthesis - The process in plants in which sugar and starch are formed from carbon dioxide and water with the help of the sun.
Physical features - non-living parts of the environment, that influence organisms within an ecosystem. (temperature, humidity, size of an area)
Predators - Animals that live by killing and eating other animals.
Permafrost - permanently frozen soil.
Producers - Organisms that produce their own food by capturing the sun's energy.
Rainforest - An area that receives more than 100 centimeters of rainfall a year, characterized by broad-leaf vegetation.
Temperature - The degrees of hotness or coldness of a substance, measured by a thermometer.
Tundra - a treeless arctic plain.
vegetation - plant life of an area.
© 2004 Bridget Fish