Energy flow 1 Flashcards
What is a food web
Collection of species present in a given space and time that are connected to each other through trophic interactions
Who eats who
No abiotic factors
Intraguild predation
Potentially eating animals on the same trophic level
What defines the structure of a food web
Number and types of species
What defines the functioning of a food web
Ways in which species interact with each other
Functioning
The transfer of energy through the structure of the web
Few connections between species means
Quick energy exchange because lack of competition for energy
Trophic level
Position in a food chain, determined by number energy-transfer steps to that level
Trophic level examples
Primary producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer
Bottom level is
Trophic level 1
Energy moving in a more complicated way
Slows the transfer of energy
Purpose of decomposers
Place nutrients back into the soil that plants can use so it can re-enter the food web
Nutrients
Cycle
Energy
Flows
Ecosystem
Interactions between organisms and their environment as an integrated system
Parts of ecosystem
Biotic
Abiotic
Food chain
Transfer of energy from the primary producers through a series of organisms that eat and are eaten
Lake structure zones
Littoral zone
Limnetic Zone
Profundal zone
Littoral zone
Area extending out from the lakeshore to where rooted plants can no longer be found
Limnetic zone
Area of the lake with enough light for photosynthesis
Mostly occupied by plankton
Profundal zone
Area beneath the limnetic zone where there is insufficient light for photosynthesis
Main source of nutrients is detritus
Earliest food webs were done in the
Arctic
Summerhayes and Elton (1923)
Studied and created foodwebs
Northern food webs
Relatively low species diversity
Simple food webs where each species is only connected to a few others
Food web structure and diversity depend on
Biodiversity
Environmental stability
Competition
Strength of interactions
Arctic food web have
high dietary specialization
Dietary niche
Number of available food sources will influence the likelihood that a species is generalist or specialist
Niche breadth
Range of resources an animal can use
Tropics resource availability
High species diversity
Interspecific competition
Dietary specialization from competition
A bunch of thin parabolas
Polar regions resource availability
Low species diversity
Limited resources
Dietary specialization
One thin parabola
Wolves are
Plastic in their foraging behavior
Environmental stability
Interactions between species will be disrupted by environmental fluctuations
Rich, diverse, interconnected food webs should emerge in stable environments
More variable, seasonal environments will favor less diverse food webs with fewer links
Match-mismatch hypothesis
Postulates that seasonal timing of reproduction is fixed whereas timing of primary production or other food varies from year to year depending on environmental condition
Three main effects of climate change can be envisioned
Change in the mean relative timing of prey
Change in the level of prey abundance
A change in the amplitude year-to-year variation in prey timing in regions where interannual variability in temperature is expected to increase
Match
Demand and availability graphs overlap
Mis-match
Demand and availability graphs do not overlap
