Ecology Flashcards
(17 cards)
What is a producer? Give 2 examples.
An organism that makes its own food. A tree and a plant.
Why are producers so important to an ecosystem?
Because they’re the main food source in an ecosystem.
What is a consumer? Give 2 examples.
An organism that cannot make their own food, must eat other plants/animals in order to get energy.
How are producers and consumers different regarding the way they get their food?
Producers make their own and Consumers have to find their food.
What is an ecosystem?
A network of interactions between living things and their surroundings.
What is a decomposer? Give an example.
An organism that eats dead things. Fungi.
What does carrying capacity tell us about the food web within an ecosystem?
It tells us the total mass of the organisms in the ecosystem.
Which groups have the most to least biomass in an ecosystem?(Producers, Carnivores, Soil, Herbivores)
Carnivores, Herbivores, Producers, Soil.
Explain why in a healthy ecosystem, there will always be more producers than Herbivores and more herbivores than carnivores.
Because this way it makes the ecosystem balanced and we don’t have to worry about adding anything to it.
What is the 10% rule and how does it apply to an organic mass pyramid?
It takes away 10% of the organic mass as it passes energy through the next trophic level. It relates to the pyramid because each level you move up you lose 10% of that mass.
What happens when you have too many carnivores within an ecosystem?
Everything dies and wouldn’t have enough food.
Draw a food web using the following organisms: hawk, grass, snake, mouse.
Grass - Mouse - Snake - Hawk
Explain how the energy flows within a food web.
The energy flows from one animal to the next when they all eating each other.
What is a carbon pool?
A places that stores carbon.
During what process does inorganic CO2 in the atmosphere change into an organic molecules?
Photosynthesis
During what process does organic glucose turn into inorganic CO2?
Cellular Respiration
What does it mean to say that species is invasive? In what ways are invasive species problematic?
They invade other species living spaces and take them over. They can take over a species space and kill that species.
