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.
