Chapter 54- Ecosystems Flashcards
Ecosystem
The species present, along with abiotic components such as the soil, climate, water, and atmosphere.
Primary Producer/Autotroph
An organism that can synthesize its own food from inorganic sources.
Net Primary Productivity (NPP)
Energy that is invested in new tissue or offspring.
Biomass
Organic material that non-photosynthetic organisms can eat.
Consumers
Eat living organisms.
Primary Consumers
Eat primary producers
Secondary Consumers
Eat primary consumers
Tertiary Consumers
Eat secondary consumers.
Decomposers/Detritivores
Obtain energy by feeding on detritus, the remains or waste products of other organisms.
Detritus
The collective term for dead animals and dead plant tissues.
Gross Primary Productivity
The total amount of photosynthesis in a given area and time period.
Gross Photosynthetic Efficiency
The ratio of gross primary productivity to the total incoming solar radiation.
Trophic Level
Occupied by organisms that obtain their energy from the same type of source.
Food Chain
Connects the trophic levels in a particular ecosystem.
Decomposer Food Chain
A food chain were decomposers are at the second trophic level.
Primary Decomposers
Decomposers which feed on plant detritus.
Grazing Food Chain
Primary consumers are at the second trophic level.
Food Web
A complex group of connected food chains. A compact way of summarizing movement of energy in an ecosystem.
Top-Down Control
When a consumer limits a prey population.
Trophic Cascade
When changes in top-down control cause conspicuous effects two or three links away in a food web.
Biomagnification
The increase in a molecule’s concentration higher in a food chain.
Biochemical cycle
The path that an element takes as it moves from abiotic systems through producers, consumers, decomposers, and back again.
Soil Organic Matter
A complex mixture of partially and completely decomposed detritus.
Humus
Completely decayed organic matter.
