Ecology Flashcards
What is an ecosystem?
The physical surroundings to which organisms are adapted
Keystone species
An organism that has an unusually large impact on ecosystems
How are beavers keystone species?
Beavers create wetlands that support many other species and keep water in the landscape.
What is an organism that makes its own food?
Producer or autotroph
How is energy transferred through an ecosystem?
Plants capture the sun’s energy in glucose.
The chemical energy is transferred to animals that eat the plants. When animals are eaten, their chemical energy is transferred to the next feeding or trophic level
What is chemosynthesis?
Organisms use chemicals to make their own food in places where the sun doesn’t reach
What is a model that shows a single sequence of feeding relationships?
A food chain
What is a detritivore?
Organisms that decompose organic matter through internal ingestion.
Ex: Worms
What is a saprotroph?
Organisms that decompose organic matter through external digestion.
Ex: Fungi
What is a specialist?
Organisms that eat only one type of food or live in one type of habitat.
Ex: Kirkland’s warbler only nests in Jack Pine forests.
What is the 10% energy transfer rule?
Only about 10% of the energy stored as biomass in a trophic level is passed from one level to the next.
What is the diagram that shows the distribution of energy in tropic levels?
Energy pyramids
All of the environmental features in the area where an organism lives are known as its _____
Habitat
What is predation?
One organism hunting and eating each other
What is symbiosis?
A relationship in which one organism lives on, in, or close to another organism and one of those organisms benefits.
