Dynamics of Ecosystems Flashcards
What is an ecosystem?
All organisms in a community and the abiotic factors in which they interact.
What are the three types of organisms that make ecosystems?
Producers, consumers and decomposers/detritivores.
What are producers and give examples?
Organisms that can make their own food. Plants, and photosynthetic protists/prokaryotes.
What are consumers?
Organisms that feed on other organisms (heterotrophs).
What are decomposers/detritivores?
Special group of consumers that feeds of dead matter. Mostly fungi and prokaryotes.
What are recyclers?
They are decomposers that convert organic matter to inorganic matter available to consumers.
What are the two main processes of ecosystem dynamics?
Energy flow and chemical cycling.
What is the name for chemical cycles and what are they?
Biogeochemical cycles. They involve biological organisms/processes and geological (abiotic) systems/processes.
What are reservoirs?
Temporary storages that contain most of a material.
What is the convention for chemical cycles?
Boxes show the reservoirs and arrows show the process required to convert the chemicals.
How does carbon enter ecosystems?… short description
It enters by carbon fixation, which is the reactions that make nongaseous compounds from gaseous compounds
How does carbon enter terrestial and aquatic ecosystems?
For terrestial: autotrophs convert CO_2 from atmosphere to organic molecules.
For aquatic: aquatic autotrophs convert it and move it through simple diffusion through diffusion at the water surface. Then, it is stored in water in carbonates/bicarbonates or converted into organic molecules by aquatic photosynthetic autotrophs.
