Energy Flow

Question 1

What is the difference between food chains and food webs?

Answer 1

Food chains represent the trophic relationship between different living things (who eats who).
Food webs are made up of food chains that are all interrelated.

Question 2

What is energy flow?

Answer 2

It’s when matter and energy are transferred/transformed in a food chain

Question 3

what is biomass?

Answer 3

it’s the mass of all the organic material (plants, animals) in an ecosystem/environment

Question 4

what is something you need to know when looking at ecological pyramids?

Answer 4

each trophic level is represented by a shape size that is proportional to the amount of biomass it has.
The biomass and energy usually decrease with each trophic level (as you go up)

Question 5

why does the energy decrease with each trophic level?

Answer 5

In all stages, energy is lost to the environment during cellular respiration, to growth, and reproduction

Question 6

what do trophic levels effect

Answer 6

relative abundance and population size

Question 7

what is primary productivity and why is it important?

Answer 7

the rate at which autotrophs produce organic material. it’s important because it determines how much food will be available for consumers

Question 8

list some factors that effect primary productivity

Answer 8

-availability of light
-water
-minerals/nutrients
-temperature/weather
-carbon dioxide concentration