Food Web Glossary / Key Terms

Ballast water: Water carried by ships for balance and stability.

Barrier: A natural feature, human-built structure or technology that prevents passage.

Biomass: The total mass of all living things in a given area.

Carnivore: A meat eater.

Consumer: An organism that eats food produced by another organism.

Decomposer: An organism that feeds on dead plant and animal matter, breaking it down for reuse by plants.

Detritus: Organic material that is either waste material from an organism or decomposing plants and animals.

Exotic species: Plant or animal that does not naturally occur in a specific location or ecosystem.

Food chain: Simplified representation of the relationship of organisms that feed on each other.

Food web: Shows what a group of fish, animals and organisms eats—often multiple species—and how energy is passed from one group to another.

Herbivore: A plant eater.

Host: An organism that harbors and provides nourishment for a parasite.

Invasive species: An animal or plant that has a profound and negative impact on an ecosystem.

Macroinvertebrates: Small animals, able to be seen with the naked eye, that do not have a backbone.

Nonindigenous species: Species that are living outside of the area where they evolved.

Omnivore: An animal that eats both plants and animals.

Parasite: An organism that lives in or on another living organism and receives nourishment from it but gives nothing in return.

Photosynthesis: The process by which a green plant makes sugar, part of the food it needs to grow, and produces oxygen.

Predator: A meat eater that catches its food (prey) alive.

Prey: An animal that is hunted or caught for food.

Producer: An organism that produces its own food (for example, a green plant).

Productive: Biologically active, supporting a diversity of aquatic life.

Spawn: To breed and deposit eggs.