| A | B |
|---|
| What is energy flow? | Energy and matter passes through ecosystems when organisms metabolize other organisms |
| Producers | Organisms which produce their own food, also called autotrophs (plants, algae, phytoplankton, etc.) |
| Consumers | Organisms which obtain their food from other organisms, also called heterotrophs (everything else! |
| Primary consumers | comsume producers |
| Secondary consumers | consume other consumers |
| Detritivores | feed on plant and animal remains and other dead matter |
| Decomposers | Organisms which break down dead and decaying matter |
| 10% rule | Only 10% of energy at one trophic level can be used by consumers at the next trophic level |
| Trophic level | Each step in a feeding relationship. This means that 90% is lost |
| Where does the energy go? | Most lost as heat |
| Ecological Pyramids | Represent relationships among trophic levels, each reducing at higher and higher levels |
| Energy pyramid | amount of incoming energy |
| Biomass pyramid | Mass of living tissue |
| Numbers pyramid | Number of organisms |
| Biogeochemical cycles | Passage of matter from one organism to another in the biosphere |
| Nutrients | are finite (not like the sun which supplies constant energy), so they must be (re)cycleed throughtvarious parts of nature |
| What do nutrients rely heavily on? | Decomposers and movement through the cycle (not getting "stuck" in one area) |
| Carbon cycle | major players=carbon dioxide; living things take in oxygen and give off CO2 through cell respirations; plants take in CO2 and produce O2 during photosynthesis/ human impact=greenhouse gases(excess CO2), global warming- changing of temp, and deforestation and habitat destruction |
