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Period: _____
Biomes Vocabulary
1. Biosphere – A narrow layer near the earth’s surface where life exists.
2. Biomes – A large region of land with climate and certain types of plant and animal life.
3. Climate – Long term weather patterns in an area, most effect plants in a biome.
4. Precipitation – A form of water such as rain, snow, or sleet, that falls to the earth’s
surface.
5. Climatogram – A graph of both temperature and precipitation.
6. Permafrost – Permanently frozen soil that is found in the tundra.
7. Deciduous trees – Trees that lose their leaves every year.
8. Conifers – Trees that produce cones, have needles instead of leaves, and don’t lose their
needles all at once. Also known as evergreens.
9. Adaptation – A characteristic that helps an organism survive in its environment and
reproduce.
10. Native species – Species that have naturally evolved in an area.
11. Exotic species – Species not native to an area.
12. Plankton – Microscopic organisms, the basis for most food chains in the open oceans.
13. Estuary – Area where a river and an ocean meet. Ex: mud flats, salt marshes, swamps.
14. Brackish water – Mixture of saltwater and fresh water.
15. Intertidal zone – Ocean zone closest to the shore, where organisms must be able to
survive both in and out of water. A difficult place to live.
16. Neritic zone – Beyond the intertidal zone, no breaking waves, constant temperature.
17. Open sea zone – Beyond the neritic zone, where the continental shelf drops off.
18. Photosynthetic zone – The top 200m of the ocean, regardless of what is under it.
19. Abyss – Below 2000 m in the ocean. No sunlight, very cold, tremendous pressure, few
organisms, the largest zone in the ocean.
20. Fast moving bodies of water – Streams; contain little life.
21. Slow moving bodies of water – Lakes, ponds, and slow-moving rivers. Contain more
living things.
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Period: _____
22. Ecoregion – A defined area that is smaller than a biome and larger than an ecosystem.
The biodiversity that characterizes an ecoregion is distinct from that of other ecoregions.
23. Habitat – The place in an ecosystem where an organism lives.
24. Microhabitat – A small habitat within a larger one in which environmental conditions differ
from these in the surrounding area.
25. Biodiversity – The variety of organisms in a specific environment, or an Earth as a whole.
26. Sustainability – – a measure of an ecosystem’s ability to 1) withstand change and remain
diverse and productive over time; 2) maintain equilibrium.
27. Equilibrium – State when opposing forces are balanced or stable.
28. Habitat loss – The loss of living space due to human activity or catastrophic events.
29. Poaching – The illegal removal or killing of wild plants or animals against local laws.
30. Pollution – Any change in the environment that is harmful to organisms.
31. Succession – A gradual orderly change of a species in a community over time.
32. Primary succession – Succession occurring on land recently exposed by a melting
glacier or on lava fields created by a volcano. (Starts from bare rock.)
33. Pioneer species – The first living things to develop in a previously lifeless area.
34. Climax community – The final stage of succession.
35. Secondary succession – The gradual return of a disturbed area to its former
communities. (ex: after a fire.) (Starts with dirt already in place!)