Amphibians: they have moist skin, no scales and lay eggs in jelly.
Biosphere: all life on Earth and the inorganic materials associated with it.
Birds: they are warm-blooded, have feathers and lay eggs with a hard shell.
Broadleaf: broad, flat leaves of various shapes found on deciduous trees.
Canopy: umbrella like arrangement of leaves and branches that sprout from the tree trunk.
Carnivore: an animal that hunts and eats other animals.
Climax vegetation: association of plants which colonise later in a succession and survive successfully in a particular environment.
Colonisation: establishment of a group of living organisms in a new space, place or territory.
Community: group of organisms living in the same habitat, which depend
on one another in various ways.
Competition: struggle by organisms for space, water, food and shelter.
Composition: lay out of piece of artwork.
Coniferous: trees bearing needle shaped leaves, which they do not shed, so are evergreen.
Consumer: animal which cannot produce (synthesise) food and so depends on other organisms for its food supply.
Coppicing: cutting a tree down to ground level in order to encourage new growth.
Deciduous: trees (plants) which shed their leaves in autumn.
Decomposer: organism that completes the breakdown of other dead organisms.
Detritivore: creature that feeds off detritus such as dead leaves.
Ecosystem: a self supporting system, which includes all the organisms of an area together with the environment in which they live.
Environment: the surroundings, including living and non-living that could possibly affect the organisms living in those surroundings.
Evergreen: trees that have developed leaves to reduce water loss which are kept for 3 to 5 years. They are not all shed in one go.
Flora: flowering plants and trees.
Food chain: links that connect the transfer of the sun’s energy.
Food web: interconnection of several food chains.
Habitat: space within which organisms live and reproduce.
Herbivore: animal that feeds only on plants.
Invertebrate: an animal without a backbone and often have a protective exoskeleton.
Jizz: describes the personality and movement of birds or animals.
Mammals: they are warm-blooded, have fur and produce milk for their young.
Native: a species that is thought to have reached Britain since the ice age without the aid of man.
Organisms: living things, plants, animals, fungi and microbes.
Photosynthesis: process by which green plants use the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into chemical energy (glucose).
Plantation: plants (trees) deliberately planted by people as a crop.
Pollarding: cutting down of a tree between 2 and 5 metres above ground level to encourage new growth.
Pollen: fine yellow grain from the male reproductive structures of flowers that fertilise the female ovule.
Predator: organism that hunts, kills and eats other organisms.
Producer: green plant that traps the sun’s energy and produces (synthesises) food.
Quadrat: unit of area within which data about organisms can be collected (can be square or circular).
Reptiles: they have dry scaly skin, are cold blooded and lay eggs.
Respiration: exchange of oxygen from the atmosphere with carbon dioxide when energy is released from stored food.
Seed: the resulting formation of a fertilised ovule from which a new plant grows after germination.
Succession: order in which new organisms become successfully established in a new place, space or territory.
Transect line: line along which organisms can be counted and data collected.
Vertebrate: an animal with a backbone.