* Record the definitions for these key terms in your science

notebooks

*Producer: An autotroph, makes up the first trophic level of an ecosystem. Supports all other levels. Usually a phosynthetic organism.

*Hetertroph: An organism that obtains organic food molecules by eating other organisms or their by products.

*Herbivore: A heterotrophic animal that eats plants

*Carnivore: A heterotrophic animal that eats other animals

*Omnivore: A heterotrophic animal that consumes both plant and animal material

*Detritivore: A consumer that derives its energy from non-living organic matter

*Decomposer: Fungi and bacteria that absord nutrients from non-living organic material

*Trophic Levels: Any of the several levels of a food chain, whose species are based on their main nutritional source

*Energy Pyramid: At each link in the food chain, energy that was originally stored by the autotrophic plants is dissipated along the food chain

*Ecosystems and Energy Flow

*Does the food we eat also need

energy?

*Why do we eat food?

* Where does the food we eat get its energy?

*Determine the flow in which energy of the meal travels (from the sun to the student).

*Where does all energy in an

ecosystem come from?

*What is the food chain showing?

*The flow of energy from one organism to another

*What is the representation of

energy flow called?

*A food web

*What is the difference between a food chain and a

food web?

*A food web is many interconnecting food chains, representing the fact that most organisms eat more than one thing

*Why does the arrow point away

from the organism that is being

eaten?

*Because the arrow shows the transfer of energy. The animal that is being eaten transfers some energy to the animal that eats it

*Trophic Levels

*Energy Pyramid

*Idea that energy flux through the food chain decreases at progressively higher trophic levels

*Less energy reaches each successively higher trophic level

*Energy is lost at each level because of the work performed by organisms at that level and because of the inefficiency of biological energy transformations

*Plants gather only a portion of light energy available from the sun, that energy is not available to herbivores as plant biomass

*Which types of organisms receive

their energy directly from the

sun

*Producers

*Primary Production provides energy to the ecosystem

*Primary production varies among ecosystems

*An autotroph is an organism that manufactures its own food from inorganic substances, like carbon dioxide and ammonia

* Most autotrophs use light for energy through photosynthesis

*Plants and other autotrophic organisms occupy the bottom trophic level

*Heterotrophs

*Organisms that obtain energy from the consumption of organic compounds by other organisms are heterotrophs

*Heterotrophs can be herbivors, carnivors, detritivores, omnivores

*Primary Consumers

*Consumers of primary producers, herbivores, are called primary consumers

*Secondary Consumers

Tertiary Consumers

*All organisms are either consumed or end up as detritus

*Secondary consumers are carnivores, consume primary consumers

*Omnivores feed on more than one trophic level

*Detritivores

*Detritivores are organisms specialized to attack wood, leaf litter, and fibrous unabsorbed plant material

*Detritus are the dead remains of plants and indifestible excreta of herbivores

*Detritivores are important in the recycling of nutrients w/in ecosystems

*Decomposers

*Decomposers remove the last energy from the remains of organisms

*Decomposers, fungi and bacteria, decompose the dead members of lower trophic levels, thus returning essential elements, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, to the ecosystem

*Primary recyclers of the ecosystem

*What is the importance of

microorganisms w/in ecosystems?

*Microorganisms help recycle nutrients from dead/decaying matter into living organisms

*Does energy accumulate in an ecosystem?

*Does a top predator have all the energy?

*Is a species high on the food web a predator to everything below?

*Do producers receive their energy through the absorption of nutrients?