🌳 The Living World

Question 1

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 1

A community where rocks, soil, vegetation, animals, humans, water, the atmosphere and climate all interact

Question 2

What is an ecosystem made up of?

Answer 2

Biotic and abiotic things

Question 3

What does biotic mean?

Answer 3

Living

Question 4

What does abiotic mean?

Answer 4

Non-living

Question 5

How do ecosystems work?

Answer 5

Has specific animal and plant life. Any change in the ecosystem disrupts the fine balance

Question 6

What are nutrients?

Answer 6

Foods that are used by plants or animals to grow such as nitrogen and potassium. Their energy is passed along the food chain

Question 7

How does energy enter and leave the ecosystems?

Answer 7

Enter: sun
Leaves: consumers dying and decomposing

Question 8

What is the source of mineral nutrients that plants need?

Answer 8

Rocks weathered by climate or decomposing consumers

Question 9

How do mineral nutrients leave the system?

Answer 9

Washed away by water

Question 10

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 10

The living and non-living parts of an environment and the interrelationships that exist between them.

Question 11

What is a biome?

Answer 11

Global scale ecosystems.

Question 12

What does adaptations mean?

Answer 12

The ways that plants evolve to cope with environmental conditions e.g. lot of rainfall.

Question 13

What are producers?

Answer 13

Organisms that get their energy from a primary source such as the sun.

Question 14

What is a consumer?

Answer 14

Organisms that get their energy by eating other organisms.

Question 15

What is a food chain?

Answer 15

A line of linkages between producers and consumers.

Question 16

What is a food web?

Answer 16

A diagram that shows all the linkages between producers and consumers in an ecosystem.

Question 17

What is a scavenger?

Answer 17

Organisms that consume dead animals or plants.

Question 18

What are decomposers?

Answer 18

Organisms such as bacteria that break down plant and animal material.

Question 19

What is nutrient cycling?

Answer 19

The recycling of nutrients between living organisms and the environment.

Question 20

What does a food chain show?

Answer 20

How each living thing gets their food

Question 21

Who is at the top of the food chain?

Answer 21

Apex predator

Question 22

What happens as you move up the food chain?

Answer 22

Energy is lost as heat and decomposition

Question 23

What are nutrients for?

Answer 23

All animals rely on nutrients in food for their health and growth

Question 24

What is little?

Answer 24

Leaves and other dead plant material on the floor

Question 25

How does litter get in and out of the nutrient cycle?

Answer 25

Input from minerals dissolved in rainfall Loss in run off

Question 26

What is biomass?

Answer 26

Total amount of vegetation

Question 27

How does biomass leave the nutrient cycle?

Answer 27

Fallout as leaves and tissues die

Question 28

How does soil enter and leave the nutrient cycle?

Answer 28

Uptake by plants and nutrients released as litter decomposes Loss by leaching

Question 29

Who makes up the detritivore community?

Answer 29

Beetles, larvae, maggots, fungi, wood lice, bacteria, slugs, snails

Question 30

What is the function of decomposition?

Answer 30

Converting dead plants and animal matter into forms that are usable for growth

Question 31

What is bacteria’s main role in decomposition?

Answer 31

Speed up the decay process

Question 32

Local change definition

Answer 32

Things which change a smaller habitat eg. Removal of a hedgerow

Question 33

Global change definition

Answer 33

Changes that have a global impact such as climate change

Question 34

What things can change in an ecosystem?

Answer 34

Loss of trees Less primary consumers Modern agricultural practises Addition of invasive species or pests Loss of producers Loss of tertiary consumers Lack of water input/changing climate