Lesson 1: Web of Life

Carnivore: animal that eats other animals (i.e. hawk, bobcat, shark).

Consumer: organisms that cannot make their own food, and must consume other organisms to get energy.

Decomposer: organism that absorbs nutrients from non-living material such as dead plants and animals and wastes of living organisms then recycles these nutrients so they can be used again by plants (i.e. bacteria, fungi).

Ecology: the study of how plants and animals interact with each other and their environment.

Food Chain: pathway along which food is transferred from one feeding level of organisms to another.

Food Web: the interconnected food chains of an ecosystem.

Herbivore: animal that eats plants (i.e. deer, rabbit).

Omnivore: animal that eats both plants and other animals (i.e. bear).

Producer: organisms that use energy from sunlight to make their own food through photosynthesis (i.e. trees).

Web of Life: the network of relationships that interconnects all members of an ecological community.