Key Words Flashcards
Producers
Photosynthetic organisms that manufacture organic substances using light energy, water, CO2, and mineral ions.
Consumers
Organisms that obtain their energy by consuming other organisms, instead of directly using the energy of sunlight.
Primary consumers
Eat producers
Secondary consumers
Eat primary consumers
Tertiary consumers
Apex predators, scavengers, and parasites
Saprobionts
Organisms that break down the complex materials in dead organisms into simple ones. This releases valuable minerals and elements in a form that can be absorbed by plants.
Food chain
A feeding relationship in which the producers are eaten by primary consumers, which in turn are eaten by secondary consumers, and so on… Each stage in the chain is called a trophic level.
Trophic level
Each stage in a food chain
Food webs
In reality most animals don’t rely on a single food source. In a single habitat many food chains will be linked to others in the food web.
Biomass
the total mass of living material in a specific area at a given time
Gross primary productivity
the total quantity of chemical energy that the plants store as biomass in a given area or volume
net primary productivity
the chemical energy store left after respiration
productivity
the amount of light energy converted to chemical energy (organic compounds) by producers in an ecosystem in a given time period
respiration
chemical energy converted from organic compounds for maintenance and growth in producers
genotype
the genetic constitution of an organism
