APES Prerequisite Vocabulary Flashcards

4744476930	Adaptation	A characteristic that improves an individual's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.	0
4744476934	Aerobic	Process that requires oxygen	1
4744476938	Anaerobic	Process that does not require oxygen	2
4744476942	Autotroph	An organism that can make its own food	3
4744476946	Biodiversity	The number of different species in an area	4
4744476950	Biomass	The total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level	5
4744476954	Biome	A group of ecosystems with similar climates and organisms	6
4744476958	Biosphere	Consists of all life on Earth and all parts of the Earth in which life exists, including land, water, and the atmosphere.	7
4744476962	Carrying capacity	The largest number of individuals of a species that the environment of a particular area can support indefinitely.	8
4744476966	Cellular respiration	The process by which cells use oxygen to produce energy from food	9
4744476931	Chromosome	An organized structure of DNA, protein, and RNA found in cells that carries the genetic information of an organism	10
4744476935	Climate	The average, seasonal weather conditions in an area over a long period of time	11
4744476939	Community	A group of various species of living things that live in the same habitat and interact with each other	12
4744476943	Conservation	The process of saving or protecting a natural resource	13
4744476947	Consumer	An organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms	14
4744476951	Decomposer	An organism that gets energy by breaking down the remains of dead organisms or animal wastes and consuming or absorbing the nutrients.	15
4744476955	Ecosystem	A system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment (biotic & abiotic)	16
4744476959	Food web	A complex arrangement of interrelated food chains illustrating the flow of energy.	17
4744476963	Fossil fuel	Coal, oil, natural gas, and other fuels that are ancient remains of plants and animals.	18
4744476967	Gene	A segment of DNA on a chromosome that codes for a specific trait	19
4744476932	Gene pool	All of the alleles in all the individuals that make up a population	20
4744476936	Habitat	A place where an organism lives	21
4744476940	Heterotroph	An organism that cannot make its own food.	22
4744476944	Kinetic energy	Energy that an object has due to its motion	23
4744476948	Latitude	Distance north or south of the Equator, measured in degrees.	24
4744476952	Law of Conservation of Matter	Principle that mass cannot be created or destroyed in ordinary chemical and physical changes.	25
4744476956	Mutation	A change in the nucleotide-base sequence of a DNA molecule	26
4744476960	Natural selection	A process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits.	27
4744476964	Niche	An organism's particular role in an ecosystem.	28
4744476968	Organism	An individual living thing	29
4744476933	Photosynthesis	A process used by plants and other autotrophs to capture light and energy and use it to power chemical reactions that convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and energy-rich carbohydrates, such as sugars and starches.	30
4744476937	Plate tectonics	The theory that the earth is broken into plates and are in motion.	31
4744476941	Pollution	Release of harmful materials into the environment	32
4744476945	Population	A group of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the same area	33
4744476949	Potential energy	Energy stored due to an object's position or arrangement	34
4744476953	Producer	An organism that can make its own food by using energy from its surroundings	35
4744476957	Toxic	causing harm; poisonous	36
4744476961	Trait	A genetically determined characteristic	37
4744476965	Trophic level	A position in a food chain occupied by a group of organisms with a similar feeding mode.	38
4744476969	Weather	The condition of Earth's atmosphere at a particular time and place.	39