ECOSYSTEMS | The Living World 🍀 Flashcards
topic: living world
What are producers?
Producers convert energy from the environment (mainly sunlight) into sugars (glucose), typically through photosynthesis. Plants are the most common producers.
What are consumers?
Consumers get energy from the sugars produced by producers.
An example is a pond snail, which eats plants.
What are decomposers?
Decomposers break down plant and animal material, returning nutrients to the soil.
Examples include bacteria and fungi.
What is a food chain?
A food chain shows direct links between producers and consumers in a simple line.
What is a food web?
A food web shows complex interrelationships between producers and consumers, forming a network rather than a simple chain.
What is nutrient cycling?
Nutrient cycling is the process where decomposers help recycle nutrients for plant and animal growth.
Sources of nutrients include rainwater washing chemicals from the atmosphere and weathered rock releasing nutrients into the soil.
How long do ecosystems take to develop?
Ecosystems can take hundreds or thousands of years to develop.
What are the impacts of change on an ecosystem?
Changes can disrupt the balance between components of an ecosystem, affecting plants, animals, and their environment.
eg. ponds dry out, plants wilt, fish die, and oxygen levels drop.
What causes changes to ecosystems?
Changes can occur naturally or as a result of human activities. They can happen at different scales:
Global scale: Examples include climate change.
Local scale: Examples include changes to a habitat, such as removing a hedge.
How do ecosystems adapt to natural changes?
Ecosystems can adapt to slow natural changes with few harmful effects. However, rapid changes, such as extreme weather events like droughts, can have severe effects
(e.g., drying ponds and lakes, edge-of-pond plants wilting, and fish dying due to lack of oxygen).
How are global ecosystems distributed across the world?
Global ecosystems form broad belts across the world from west to east, parallel to lines of latitude. This distribution is largely determined by global atmospheric circulation.
What causes variations in west-to-east belts of vegetation?
Variations are caused by factors such as:
- Ocean currents
- Winds
- The distribution of land and sea
These factors create small variations in temperature and moisture, which affect ecosystems. For example, the Mediterranean region has its own global ecosystem with dry, hot summers and warm, wet winters.
What are global ecosystems (biomes)?
Global ecosystems are large-scale ecosystems defined mainly by the dominant type of vegetation in the region, such as tropical rainforests or tundra.
