Is There Life in a Decomposing Log?
Vocabulary
- Classify
- Systematically arrange or organize according to common attributes, qualities, or traits.
- Community
- A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.
- Consumer
- An organism that obtains its food (i.e, complex organic compounds) by eating other organisms or organic matter.
- Data
- Collected information which can be quantitative (numerical) or qualitative (descriptive). Factual information used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation.
- Decomposer
- An organism that eats dead or decaying organisms.
- Decomposition
- To break down organic matter from complex to simpler forms or smaller parts, mainly through the actions of fungi, insects, worms, and bacteria; or to undergo this process.
- Ecosystem
- A unit consisting of all the living organisms in a given area (the community), as well as their relationship to the non-living (abiotic) surrounding environment. Thus, an ecosystem’s components may include plants, animals, and microorganisms, soil, rocks, and minerals, water sources, and atmosphere.
- Fungus
- Members of the kingdom, Fungi, which includes mushrooms, molds, mildews, smuts, rusts, and yeasts. These organisms lack chlorophyll and function as decomposers.
- Habitat
- A place providing appropriate living conditions for an organism, species, or community.
- Invertebrate
- An animal that lacks a backbone.
- Larva
- The early immature form of any animal that at birth or hatching is fundamentally unlike its parent and must metamorphose before assuming adult characteristics.
- Life Cycle
- The series of form and/or functional stages through which an organism passes during its life.
- Observe
- To gather information and direct evidence by using the senses or scientific instruments.
- Organism
- A living thing, such as a plant, animal, virus, or bacterium.
- Producer
- An organism (such as a green plant, or a bacteria) that produces its own food through photosynthesis (using light energy) or through chemosynthesis (using chemical energy).
- Snag
- An upright dead tree.
- Species
- A group of similar organisms that can reproduce amongst themselves, with viable offspring.
- Tally
- A mark, or marks, representing a number.
