Biology 20 - Chapter 1 : Energy and matter exchange in the biosphere Flashcards
Matter
Anything that occupies space and has mass.
Biosphere
The zone on the earth that contains life.
Ecosystem
Biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
Trophic levels
Trophic levels describe feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
Autotroph
Also called producers (“self-feeders”). Only 1-2% of energy from the sun is captured by autotrophs.
Heterotroph
Also called consumers. They consume producers or other consumers.
Photoautotroph
Organisms that use light energy and inorganic carbon to produce organic materials.
Chemoautotroph
Organisms that use inorganic energy sources to release energy for their use.
Photosynthetic
“Photosynthetic organisms” means organisms (producers) that capture energy from the sun by undergoing photosynthesis.
Chemosynthetic
“Chemosynthetic organisms” means organisms that capture energy from inorganic sources by undergoing chemosynthesis.
Producer
Also called autotrophs (“self-feeders”). Only 1-2% of energy from the sun is captured by producers.
Consumers
An organism that cannot produce its food and must eat other plants and/or animals (producers) to get energy.
Decomposer
An organism that feeds on and breaks down dead plant or animal matter, making organic nutrients available to the ecosystem.
Carnivore
An organism that mostly eats meat, or the flesh of animals.
Herbivore
An organism that mostly feeds on plants.
Omnivore
An organism that eats plants and animals.
Primary Producer
Organisms, such as plants and phytoplankton, that can produce their own food through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis (autotrophs).
Primary Consumer
Organisms that eat producers.
Secondary Consumer
Organisms that eat primary consumers.
Tertiary Consumer
Organisms that eat secondary consumers.
Quaternary Consumer
Organisms that eat tertiary consumers.
First law of thermodynamics
Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. However, energy can change forms, and energy can flow from one place to another.
Second law of thermodynamics
Each time energy is transferred within a system, some of it is lost (usually in the form of heat). No energy transformation is ever 100% efficient.
Food Chain
A food chain is a straight line that shows who eats who in an ecosystem.
Food Web
A food web is a tangled web that shows all the connected relationships between different organisms and what they eat.
Pyramid of Numbers
Each bar represents a different trophic level. The width of the bars represents the number of organisms at that level.
Pyramid of Energy
They show the amount of energy that is transferred through each trophic level.
Pyramid of Biomass
Pyramids of biomass show the relative dry mass of living or once-living organisms per unit area in an ecosystem
Biomagnification
The process by which toxins are passed from one trophic level to the next (and thereby increase in concentration) within a food web.
Bioaccumulation
The process by which toxins enter the food web builds up in individual organisms.
