Components and Flow of Energy in Ecosystems

Question 1

What is the biosphere?

Answer 1

The biosphere is made up of all the microbes, plants and animals
on Earth.

The biosphere is all about life. It is the place where all life exists and
it is composed of biomes.

Question 2

What is a biome?

Answer 2

Biomes are regions of the world with similar climate, animals and
plants.

Question 3

What are the five major types of biomes?

Answer 3

Aquatic

Desert

Forest

Grassland

Tundra

Question 4

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 4

An ecosystem is a group of biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living)
things interacting with each other.

Question 5

Biotic factors

Answer 5

Include all living organisms,
including the largest living species the blue whale to the smallest bacteria.

Question 6

Abiotic Factors

Answer 6

Include all non-living
factors, including temperature, light
intensity, wind speed, rainfall, humidity, pH
and salinity.

Question 7

What is a community?

Answer 7

Community: populations of various species that are living at
the same time and place.

Question 8

What is a population?

Answer 8

Population: individuals of the same species that occur
together in time and space.

Question 9

Habitat

Answer 9

A place where an organism lives.

Question 10

Organism

Answer 10

Organism: A single living creature.

Question 11

Tropic levels

Answer 11

A group of organisms that forms one link in a food chain, consisting of producers,
consumers and decomposers.

Question 12

Producers and consumers

Answer 12

Producer otherwise known as an autotroph, an organism capable of making
its own food.

Consumer also known as a heterotroph, an organism that must eat or
consume other plants or animals as a source of energy

Decomposers are organisms which breaks down, organic material such as the
remains of dead organisms and results in the cycling of nutrients

Question 13

Types of consumers

Answer 13

Primary consumer are the first consumer who
eats the producer in a food chain.

Secondary consumer the consumer who eats
the primary consumer.

Tertiary consumer the consumer who eats the
secondary consumer.

Apex predator the highest level consumer in a
food chain.

Question 14

Energy transfer

Answer 14

In every ecosystem, energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next.

But not all the energy available to organisms at one trophic level can be
absorbed by organisms at the next one: in fact the amount of available
energy decreases dramatically at each level.

90% goes to heat and 10% is passed on.