B1.5 & 1.6 Energy And Biomass In Food Chains & Waste Materials From Plants And Animals Flashcards
Draw an example of a food chain:
•Grass–>grasshopper–>mouse–>snake–>bird
What do the arrows of a food chain represent?
•The direction in which food energy is transferred.
What are the food chain levels called?
•Trophic levels, a feeding level.
What do food chains start with?
•Producers.
What are food chains?
•A diagram to represent feeding relationships between organisms, showing direction of energy flow from one organism to the next.
How are food chains made more efficient?
•Reducing the number of stages.
•Limit an animal’s movement.
•Keeping the organism warm.
E.g. Battery farms.
How is energy transfer lost?
- Respiration.
- Heat.
- Waste- faeces, urine.
- Reproduction.
Why are the amounts of material and energy contained in the biomass of organisms reduced at each successive stage in a food chain?
Energy is lost through... •Organisms' waste materials. •Respiration- it supplies all the energy needed for living process. •Movement. •Heat to the surroundings.
In a food chain, as you move up a trophic level…
•There’s less energy, less biomass and fewer organisms.
How does energy transfer work in green plants and algae?
- They capture a small part of the solar energy which reaches them.
- Energy from the sun is used to make food during photosynthesis.
- Energy is stored in the substances which make up the cells of plants.
- The energy works its way through the food chain as animals eat them and each other.
The mass of living material (biomass) at each stage in a food chain is…
•Less than it was at the previous stage.
What is energy transfer needed for?
- Growth
* Reproduction
What are pyramids of biomass?
- The biomass at each stage can be drawn to scale.
* The bars at the different stages show the biomass of the organism.
What is biomass?
- Mass of living material.
- Chemical energy stored in food.
- Chemical energy stored as animal tissue (biomass) can be transferred to the carnivore via their food.
What is energy transfer?
•Radiation from the Sun is the source of energy for most communities of living organisms.
What is respiration?
- Supplies the energy for all life processes including movement.
- A chemical process that releases energy from glucose in all living cells, so that all the other chemical processes needed for life can happen.
What is decay?
- An essential life process, which helps to digest food and recycle materials.
- When dead animals and plants break down- important elements return to the soil ready to be put back into the food chain.
- The state or process of rotting or decomposition.
How is energy lost through respiration?
- Energy used for life processes.
- Energy lost by heat to the surroundings. (Especially in birds and mammals as their bodies must be kept at a constant temperature, which is usually higher than the surroundings).
What are the key factors of decay?
- Temperature.
- Amount of oxygen.
- Amount of water.
- Presence of microorganisms.
- Food.