Chapt 1: Energy and Matter Biosphere Flashcards
What is the biosphere?
- includes all the living things that inhabit the Earth and the environment that supports them
Example of biosphere?
- Hydrosphere (water) and it’s components
- Lithosphere (land) and it’s components
- Atmosphere (air) and its components
Fill in the blanks. “All organisms need ___ to survive”
- energy
What does most organisms use to utilize (make use of) energy?
- cellular respirtation
2 ways of how organisms store energy
- Most energy is stored through Photosynthesis
- Some energy is stored through chemosynthesis
What are the 3 outcomes of radiant energy
- 30% reflected by clouds, dust (atmosphere), land, and water
- 19% absorbed by atmospheric gases (like CO2 and water vapour)
- 51% absorbed by earth’s surface (land and water) through very little is used for photosynthesis
What are 3 ways to represent feeding relationships
- How an organism obtains its food (eg, herbivore, carnivore)
- By consumer level (Primary Consumer)
- By trophic level
What is trophic level
- feeding level through which energy and matter are transferred
- eg, first trophic level, second trophic level
What is a food chain
- linear pathway through which food is transferred from producers to consumers
Which do the arrows point in the food chain?
- towards whoever us consuming it
What is a food web
- a model of food (energy) transfer in an ecosystem that shows the connections among food chains
What limits the length of a food chain?
- the amount of energy transferred from one trophic level to another (10%) limits it
What is the rule of 10%
- 10% of the energy at one trophic level is transferred to the next trophic level
What are ecological pyramids
- used to describe quantitative relationships between trophic levels
What are the 3 types of ecological pyramids
- Pyramid of Numbers
- Pyramid of Biomass
- Pyramid of Energy
What is the pyramid of numbers
- Each bar represents a different trophic level
- its width represents the number of organisms at that level
- Pyramid of numbers do not always take an upright shape
- eg, forest ecosystem - fewer trees (producers) than organisms
- doesn’t take into account size of organisms as one big tree can contain a lot of organisms
What is a pyramid of biomass
- good indicator of the amount of energy present in the living tissue if an ecosystem
- complications: some scientists only include only living material, others include ones-living materials (dead trees, shrubs, grass)
- Exceptions to upright shape - biomass of producers may be less than consumers
What is pyramid of energy
- shows total amount of energy that us transferred through each trophic level
- Always upright - there can NEVER be less energy in lower trophic levels compared to higher levels
What does biomass mean
- dry mass of living, or once living, organisms per unit area
What is biomagnification/bioaccumulation
- build up toxins and chemicals in an organism as infected tissue moves up trophic levels
- they are not easy to breakdown, they are persistent, and are long lived in the food chain
What are producers
- organisms that are able to use the Sun’s energy to produce food for themselves
- also known as autotrophs which means self-feeders
What are consumers
- organisms that obtain other organisms to consume nutrients
- called heterotrophs which means “other feeders”
What is albedo?
- the ability to reflect energy
- Light coloured and reflective surfaces have high albedo
- whilst dark surfaces and water reflects less so less albedo
In the big amount of energy that reached the ground of earth, do producers receive a lot?
- No, only a portion of the energy
- and it is used for photosynthesis
What is chemosynthesis
- occurs in places where there are no sunlight for organisms so cannot rely in photosynthesis
- where micro-organisms are able to split the hydrogen sulfide molecules spewing from the deep sea-vents
- the bacteria then capture the energy stored in the chemical bonds of the molecules
- produced sulphuric acid
What are herbivores
- type of consumer
- organisms that eat plants
- termed primary consumers because they are the first eaters of plants and other producers
What are carnivores
- animals that eat other animals
- carnivores that eat mainly herbivores are secondary consumers
- tertiary consumers are consumers that eat secondary consumers
What are decomposers. Why are they important
- another consumer that obtains their energy-rich molecules by eating or absorbing leftover or waste matter
- Important to the biosphere because they return organic and inorganic matter to soul, air and water
What is the first and second law of thermodynamics
first
- energy cannot be created or destroyed
- only be converted from one form to another
second
- with each conversion if energy there us less energy available to do useful work
what type of pyramid can have less organisms at the bottom
- pyramid of numbers
- pyramid of biomass
