Creating Chains and Webs to Model Ecological Relationships Flashcards
whats a food chain??!?
the order of events in an ecosystem, where one living organism eats another organism, and later that organism is consumed by another larger organism. The flow of nutrients and energy from one organism to another at different trophic levels forms a food chain.
whats a food web???
a system of interlocking and interdependent food chains.
why is a pyramid good for showing energy flow through trophic levels
as the trophic level increases, the amount of energy available and transferred decreases
Explain why populations of top carnivores, such as lions, are always smaller than the populations of herbivores such as grasshoppers or omnivores like warthogs.
. Animals at the top have less energy because they only get 10% of the energy of the organism it gets it from.
describe whether some trophic levels benefit from the disturbance while others do not. if humans caused the disturbance, was it negative or positive for each trophic level in the food chain and/or web?
detrivores (these consume dead organic matter) will benefit from the decrease in populations since it means more dead matter to eat. All the levels will not benefit and will have a negative effect because they all depend on each other,, while detrivores are not part of any of the chains.
How are energy pyramids and food webs organized?
Energy pyramids place producers at the bottom and are arranged according to trophic level, illustrating how the quantity of energy available declines as trophic level rises.
Food webs illustrates the trophic levels’ prey/predator relationships.
How did you calculate how much energy is transferred to each trophic level?
Energy transferred to higher trophic level/lower trophic level energy=
multiply the product by 100=
% of energy transfered. Average is usually 10% energy transferred.
