Community Interactions Flashcards
What do community interactions measure?
Food chains and food webs
What is the ultimate source of energy for living systems found above ground or near the top of the water?
All energy originates from the Sun.
What is a food chain? Give an example that is realistic.
Simple representation of how nutrients move from one species to another:
grass > grasshopper > burrowing owl.
What does the food chain not capture?
Doesn’t capture all the interactions in the community; misses some complexity
What is the direction of the arrow indicating?
Where energy flows.
What is a food web?
Includes all the interactions between all of the organisms in the community
What is the role of a producer in a food web?
Converts inorganic energy into organic molecules.
Are all producers photosynthetic?
No. They can also be chemotrophs (convert inorganic molecules into organic molecules; e.g., archae in sulfur vents).
Where in the food web do producers occur?
Base.
What is the role of the consumer in a food web?
Consumes all or parts of other organisms to get energy and nutrients.
What is a primary consumer? Give an example
Herbivore, eats all producers. E.g., deer eats shrub roots.
What is a secondary consumer? Give an example
Carnivore, eats the primary consumer. E.g., bird eats grasshopper.
What is a tertiary consumer? Give an example.
Eats the consumer. E.g., badger eats bird.
What is a quaternary consumer? Give an example
Eats the tertiary consumer; apex predator. E.g., wolf eats deer.
What is the role of decomposers in a food web? Why are they so
important?
Because they break down for the producer level to bring back to the system.
