Ecosystems Flashcards
What is an ecosystem?
A community of living organisms that interact with one another and with the non-living components.
What are the organisms connected by?
Trophic Levels.
What are the three trophic levels?
Consumers, producers, and decomposers.
What is a producer?
-Organisms that can transform inorganic matter into organic matter
-Autotrophs
-Bottom of the food chain
-They use photosynthesis
What is a consumer?
-Incapable of feeding themselves. (Heterotrophs)
-Energy by eating other organisms or their products.
What are the types of consumers?
First order: Herbivores
1-4 Order: Carnivores
Some species are several orders at once: Omnivores.
What are Decomposers?
-Connected to all trophic levels
-Feed on detritus, and break it down to organic.
-detritavores
How many food chains are possible in an ecosystem?
Multiple.
How many trophic relationships are in an ecosystem
Multiple.
Through _______ matter and energy within an ecosystem are exchanged from one organism to another in a process called material and energy flow.
Trophic relationships.
What is the law of conservation of energy?
No energy is lost nor created, only transferred or transformed.
What is chemical recycling?
The matter is transferred through each trophic level and decomposers break down the organic matter into inorganic matter.
_____ passes from one state to another but remains in circulation in the ecosystem.
Matter.
Every trophic level organisms store…
Energy.
What happens to that energy?
A big part is lost through heat and waste as it passes through the levels.
What is the total mass of organic matter?
Biomass
What reveals the primary productivity?
Measuring the Biomass.
Amount of new biomass made by producers
Primary productivity.
What does primary productivity represent?
how much energy is available to first-order consumers.
Factors that influence primary productivity.
-Amount of sunlight available for photosynthesis
-Amount of water (photosynthesis)
-Acess to nutrients.
What is an event that disturbs ecosystems?
Disturbances.
What can disturbances lead to?
Elimination of organisms, changing the availability of resources.
Natural disturbances examples.
Forest fire, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, volcanic eruption, blizzards.
Human disturbances examples
Forest fire, pollution, overhunting, burning fossil fuels, oil spills, deforestation, nuclear explosions, overconsumption, war.
