---
title: "Ecology Vocabulary"
description: "Use vocabulary for feeding relationships and ecological roles — producer, consumer, predator, prey, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, decomposer, food chain, food web, nutrient cycle — and describe how "
canonical: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/ecology-vocabulary-mt_M7XhBBzYof
source: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/ecology-vocabulary-mt_M7XhBBzYof.md
retrieved: 2026-10-19
---

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# Ecology Vocabulary

Use vocabulary for feeding relationships and ecological roles — producer, consumer, predator, prey, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, decomposer, food chain, food web, nutrient cycle — and describe how energy and matter flow through ecosystems using these terms

Subject: Science · Area: Ecosystems & Habitats · Ages 8 to 10
Page: https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/ecology-vocabulary-mt_M7XhBBzYof

## Ready when they can

- Construct a food chain correctly using producer, consumer, predator, and prey in the right positions
- Distinguish between herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore with correct examples from a given ecosystem
- Explain what a decomposer does and why it matters, using the correct vocabulary

## Lesson: Who Eats Whom: Ecology Vocabulary

Every living thing has a role in getting energy. A producer makes its own food. Plants are producers: they use sunlight to make food in their leaves. A consumer cannot make its own food, so it eats other living things to get energy.

Consumers get more specific names based on what they eat. A herbivore eats only plants, like a deer. A carnivore eats only other animals, like a lion. An omnivore eats both plants and animals, like a raccoon.

*(drawing: Grass is the producer. The rabbit eats the grass, so it's a consumer. The fox hunts the rabbit, so the fox is the predator and the rabbit is its prey.)*

**Example.** When a leaf falls and dies, a decomposer breaks it down. Mushrooms and tiny bacteria in the soil are decomposers. They turn dead leaves and animals back into nutrients that plants can use to grow again.

A food chain is one straight line of eating, like grass to rabbit to fox, and its energy begins with sunlight caught by the producer. Most animals eat more than one thing, so many food chains link into a food web. If the producers in a habitat disappeared, the plant-eaters would have no food. When decomposers return nutrients to the soil, that whole loop is called a nutrient cycle.

**Recap.** Energy flows from producer to consumer to predator, and decomposers return everything to the soil so the cycle can start again.

## Practice

24 questions on this page, each with its working shown.

## Needs first

- [Simple Food Chains](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/simple-food-chains-mt_EygMHKs8Ed)

## Opens up

- [Matter Cycling in Ecosystems](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/matter-cycling-in-ecosystems-mt_0ajzcoKAKw)
- [Food Chains & Energy Transfer](https://lightmysky.com/learn/science/food-chains-and-energy-transfer-mt_oB-L8EVdIP)