Ecosystems

Question 1

What do we call the different energy levels of the ecosystem?

Answer 1

Tropic levels

Question 2

What are the two main types of organism in an ecosystem?

Answer 2

Producers and consumers

Question 3

What is the primary source of energy in all ecosystems?

Answer 3

The Sun

Question 4

Define “producer”

Answer 4

An organism that can make its own energy from the Sun and its environment

Question 5

Define “consumer”

Answer 5

An organism that can’t make its own energy and has to get it from eating other organisms

Question 6

What are the four types of consumers?

Answer 6

herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, and detritivores/scavengers

Question 7

What type of consumer only eats other consumers?

Answer 7

carnivores

Question 8

What type of consumer eats both other consumers and producers?

Answer 8

omnivores

Question 9

What type of consumer eats/breaks down dead animal and plant matter?

Answer 9

detritivores/scavengers

Question 10

What is photosynthesis?

Answer 10

the process that producers use to convert sunlight into energy

Question 11

What is cellular respiration?

Answer 11

The process that consumers use to turn food into energy?

Question 12

How are photosynthesis and cellular respiration connected?

Answer 12

They’re the same process, just in the opposite order

Question 13

What are the three main organizational charts we use to study an ecosystem?

Answer 13

Food chains, food webs, and pyramids

Question 14

Which is more accurate and precise: food chains or food webs?

Answer 14

Food webs. Food chains don’t show the complicated relationships that exist in real ecosystems

Question 15

What are three types of ecological pyramid?

Answer 15

Energy pyramids, biomass pyramids, and number pyramids

Question 16

What is the purpose of the carbon cycle?

Answer 16

To reuse carbon found in gases and in living things, since carbon is an essential building block of living organisms

Question 17

What are the three cycles responsible for balancing the chemical and nutrient ratios on Earth?

Answer 17

The carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles

Question 18

What are the different danger levels we use to rank the reduction an organism population?

Answer 18

Vulnerable, Threatened, Extirpated, Endangered, Extinct

Question 19

What is a keystone species?

Answer 19

A species that causes critical damage if it is removed from its ecosystem

Question 20

What is biodiversity?

Answer 20

The variety of different populations of organisms in an ecosystem

Question 21

What is primary succession?

Answer 21

The conversion of a lifeless environment, like bare sand and rock, into a thriving ecosystem over time

Question 22

What is secondary succession?

Answer 22

The regrowth and replacements of populations in an ecosystem after it gets damaged

Question 23

What is a pioneer species?

Answer 23

the first organisms to move into a lifeless environment and begin primary succession (usually microbes or lichens).

Question 24

What is a climax community?

Answer 24

the “final” stage of succession

Question 25

A forest fire would trigger what type of succession?

Answer 25

secondary; the fire won’t destroy the soil, so it is secondary, not primary succession