B1.5 - Energy And Biomass Flashcards
Describe how energy passes into food chains.
Plants absorb sunlight and convert the light energy to chemical energy in photosynthesis. This chemical energy is stored in glucose or starch.
What is biomass?
Biomass is the mass of living material at each stage of a food chain.
Why does the biomass decrease at each stage of a food chain?
Some waste material and energy is lost in waste material released by organisms.
Energy is also wasted as organisms respire (e.g - for movement). Eventually this energy is transferred to the surroundings as heat.
Some of the energy is inedible and is lost this way.
What is biomass?
Biomass is the dry mass of living organisms (the mass after all the water has been removed).
What is a producer?
A producer is an organism that makes its own food using the energy from the sun.
Producers are at the beginning of food chains and also absorb nutrients made from decaying animals, plants and waste.
What is a consumer?
A consumer is any organism that needs to eat another organism (plant or animal) to survive.
What is a carnivore?
A carnivore is an animal that only eats meat.
What is a herbivore?
A herbivore is an animal that only eats plants.
What is an omnivore?
An omnivore is an animal that eat plants and meat.
