Ecosystems

Question 1

What are the components of an ecosystem?

Answer 1

Producers - plants with photosynthesis to produce food.
Consumers - Animals that eat plants or other animals.
Decomposers - Organisms that break down dead material and help to recycle nutrients.
The physical enviorment - All the non biological components of the ecosystem.

Question 2

What are biotic factors?

Answer 2

Biotic factors are biological. Many involve feeding relationships.
They include:
- Availability of food and competition for food resources.
- Predation.
- Parasitism.

Question 3

What are abiotic factors?

Answer 3

Abiotic factors are physical or chemical factors they include:
- Climate, such as light intensity, temperature and water availability.
- Hours of daylight.
- Soil conditions such as ph.

Question 4

Whats a food chain made of?

Answer 4

• Producer - Producers are organisms that produce its own food with photosynthesis.
• Primary consumer - Herbivores. They eat only plants and algae.
• Secondary consumer - Carnivores.

The different levels in a food chain are called trophic levels.

If there are more levels, the next link is a tertiary consumer.
The last link is the quaternary consumer, or top carnivore.

Question 5

Whats an ecological pyramid?

Answer 5

Diagrams that represent the relative amounts of organisms at each trophic level in a food chain.

Question 6

What are the 2 types of ecological pyramids?

Answer 6

○ Pyramids of Numbers:
Represents the number of organisms in each trophic level, irrespective of their mass.
○ Pyramids of Biomass:
Shows the total mass of the organisms in each trophic level, irrespective of their numbers.

Question 7

Why are diagrams of feeding relationships important?

Answer 7

To show how there are losses of energy in the chain. When a rabbit consumes food, not all the materials of the food end up in the rabbit.

Question 8

Whats the carbon cycle?

Answer 8

The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of Earth.

Question 9

Why do we need nitrogen?

Answer 9

Atmospheric nitrogen is important for the proper functioning of cells.
This is because proteins are made up of amino acids which are in turn made of nitrogen molecules.

Question 10

Whats the nitrogen cycle?

Answer 10

The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmospheric, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems.