Honor Bio 3.3 Flashcards
What are Trophic Levels?
Trophic levels are the hierarchical positions in a food chain or web, representing the flow of energy. They include producers (autotrophs), primary consumers (herbivores), secondary consumers (carnivores/omnivores), tertiary consumers, and decomposers.
What is the difference between an Autotroph and a Heterotroph?
An autotroph produces its own food through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis (e.g., plants), while a heterotroph consumes other organisms for energy (e.g., animals, fungi).
What are the key differences between Herbivores, Omnivores, Carnivores, and Detritivores?
Herbivores eat only plants (e.g., deer).
Omnivores eat both plants and animals (e.g., humans).
Carnivores eat only other animals (e.g., lions).
Detritivores consume dead organic matter (e.g., earthworms, vultures).
Describe the difference between a Food Web and a Trophic Cascade Diagram.
A food web shows the complex interactions and energy flow between multiple organisms at different trophic levels. A trophic cascade diagram focuses on how changes in one species (usually a top predator) can indirectly affect multiple levels of the ecosystem, often leading to significant changes in the population of other organisms.
Given a food web, how do you identify an organism’s trophic level?
Producers (plants or algae) are at the lowest level.
Primary consumers (herbivores) eat producers.
Secondary consumers (carnivores/omnivores) eat primary consumers.
Tertiary consumers eat secondary consumers.
Decomposers break down dead organisms.
How do you use a trophic cascade model to make predictions about an ecosystem?
In a trophic cascade, removing or adding a predator can cause ripple effects across trophic levels. For example, if a top predator is removed, its prey’s population may increase, which can reduce the populations of organisms lower on the food chain. Predict how changes at one level affect other levels based on feeding relationships.
