Ecosystems Lab Flashcards
What is a food chain
What energy flows through in one direction in an ecosystem
What is an ecosystem
A community of living organisms and the nonliving components of the environment
What is a food web
All the food chains within a community of organisms
What are the producers
Autotrophs of an ecosystem
What are the primary consumers
The herbivores and omnivores of an ecosystem
Secondary consumers
The carnivores and omnivores of an ecosystem
Generalists
Consumers in the type of ecosystem where the animals eat many different types of plants or other animals
Specialists
The consumers that have simple food webs
Biodiversity
The variation in species found in an ecosystem
How is biodiversity measured
1) species richness (total number of different species in an ecosystem)
2) relative abundance (A measure of how common each species is within the ecosystem)
Which regions have high or low levels of biodiversity?
Regions with many different species with a high relative abundance have high levels of biodiversity
How does the relative abundance change?
If one or more of the populations within ecosystem grows or declines overtime
How does the species richness of the ecosystems change?
If some of the populations disappear because of too much predation or too little access to natural resources
Why is it important to understand how food web complexity is related to the biodiversity of an ecosystem?
Because of the role that biodiversity please in an ecosystem health and tolerance to ecological disturbances
Guiding question
How does food web complexity affect the biodiversity of an ecosystem
