Lecture 33/34-Ecosystem Ecology & Conservation Ecology Flashcards
Ecosystem dynamics involve:
Energy flow and chemical cycling
Sum of all the organisms living within its boundaries and all the abiotic factors with which they interact.
Ecosystem
What are the 5 different trophic levels?
Primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and decomposers
Ultimately support all others within ecosystems.
Primary producers
4 examples of primary producers are:
Autotrophs, plants, algae, and photosynthetic prokaryotes
Herbivores.
Primary consumers
Carnivores eating herbivores
Secondary consumers
Carnivores eating carnivores
Tertiary consumers
Consumers that get their energy from detritus and detritivores.
Decomposers
What is detritus?
Nonliving organic materials
What are detritivores?
Prokaryotes and fungi
Primary production is the amount of light energy converted into chemical energy by:
Autotrophs
How is primary production measured?
Energy per unit area per unit time OR biomass added to the ecosystem per unit area per unit time
Primary production sets __________ __________ on ecosystem complexity.
Upper limit
GPP =
Gross primary product
NPP =
Net primary production
R =
Autotrophic respiration
Only _____ is available to consumers.
NPP
Which ecosystem has high NPP?
Tropics
The amount of chemical energy in consumer’s food that is converted to their own new biomass during a given time period.
Secondary production
How efficient the organism is at energy transformation is measured by what?
Production efficiency
Energy transfer between trophic levels is only about _____% efficient.
10%
Percentage of production transferred from on trophic level to the next.
Trophicefficiency
Chemical elements are available only in:
Limited amounts
