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| a group of various species that live in the same habitat and interact with each other |
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| a community of organisms and their abiotic environment |
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| the place where an organism usually lives |
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| the variety of organisms in a given area, the genetic variation within a population, the variety of species in a community, or the variety of communities in an ecosystem |
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| the replacement of one type of community by another at a single location over a period of time |
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| the average weather conditions in an area over a long period of time |
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| a large region characterized by a specific type of climate and certain types of plant and animal communities |
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| an organism that can make organic molecules from inorganic molecules; a photosynthetic or chemosynthetic autotroph that serves as the basic food source in an ecosystem |
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| an organism that eats other organisms or organic matter instead of producing its own nutrients or obtaining nutrients from inorganic sources |
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| an organism that feeds by breaking down organic matter from dead organisms; examples include bacteria and fungi |
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| one of the steps in a food chain or food pyramid; examples include producers and primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers |
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| a triangular diagram that shows an ecosystem's loss of energy, which results as energy passes through the ecosystem's food chain; each row in the pyramid represents a trophic (feeding) level in an ecosystem, and the area of a row represents the energy stored in that trophic level |
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| the movement of carbon from the nonliving environment into living things and back |
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| in biology, the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between living cells and their environment; includes breathing and cellular respiration |
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| the cycling of nitrogen between organisms, soil, water, and the atmosphere |
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| the cyclic movement of phosphorus in different chemical forms from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment |
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