6th Grade Life Science Vocabulary

1. abiotic component – a nonliving part of an organism’s habitat (i.e. sun, clouds, dirt, etc.)
2. biotic component – a living part of an organism’s habitat (i.e. plants, animals, etc.)
3. organism – a living thing
4. population – all of the members of one species in a particular area
5. community – all the different populations that live together in an area (all the living things
in the area)
6. ecosystem – the community of organisms that live in a particular area along with their
non living surroundings (all the living & nonliving things that surround an organism)
7. food chain – a series of events in which one organism eats another and obtains energy
8. food web – the pattern of overlapping food chains in an ecosystem
9. producer – an organism such as a plant that makes its own food
10. consumer – an organism that obtains energy by feeding on other organisms
11. decomposer – an organism that breaks down wastes , organic matter & dead organisms
into simpler substances that can be reused by the ecosystem
12. competition – the struggle between organisms to survive as they attempt to use the same
limited resource
13. predator – an organism that kills another organism (prey) for food
14. prey – the organism that is killed and eaten by another organism (predator)
15. symbiosis – a close relationship between two species that benefits at least one of the
species
16. mutualism – a relationship between two species in which both species benefit
17. commensalism – a relationship between two species in which one species benefits and
the other is neither helped nor harmed
18. parasitism – a relationship in which one organism lives on or in a host and harms it
19. parasite – the organism that benefits by living on or in a host in a parasitic interaction
20. species extinction – the disappearance of all members of a species from earth