Feeding Relationships Flashcards
1
Q
PRODUCERS
A
beginning of food chain. produce their own food using energy from the sun (eg grass)
2
Q
food chain order
A
producer - primary -secondary - tertiary - decomposers
3
Q
what is a trophic level?
A
each stage in a food chain
4
Q
what does a food chain show
A
what’s eaten by what in an ecosystem
5
Q
what is a pyramid of numbers?
A
- each bar shows the NUMBER OF ORGANISMS at that stage
- producers go at the bottom because they’re at the bottom of a food chain
- a typical pyramid of numbers, where every time you go up a trophic level the number of organisms goes down. this is because it takes a lot of food from the level below to keep ONE ANIMAL alive.
6
Q
what is a pyramid of biomass?
A
- each bar on a pyramid of biomass shows the MASS OF LIVING MATERIAL at that stage of the food chain.
- so one fox would have a big biomass and hundreds of fleas would have a very small biomass
- biomass pyramids are always the right shape.
7
Q
what is a pyramid of energy transfer?
A
- show the energy transferred to each trophic level in a food chain
e. g. when a rabbit eats dandelions it gets energy, which the dandelion got from the sun. - pyramids of energy transfer are always a regular pyramid
8
Q
what is a food web?
A
- shows how food chains are linked.
- all the species in a food web are interdependent.
9
Q
how is energy transferred along a food chain?
A
- sun -> plants -> primary… and so on.
- energy works its way through the food chain as the animals eat the plants and each other.
10
Q
why is not all the energy transferred from organism to organism?
A
- some parts aren’t eaten (roots or bones)
- some parts are indigestible (fur)
- lots of energy used in respiration
- most energy transferred to surroundings as heat
- egestion
- excretion
11
Q
how much energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next?
A
about 10%
