GACS lclab Honors Biology - Chapter 2 - Principles of Ecology - Section 2.2 - Flow of Energy in an Ecosystem
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21 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 autotroph | an organism that collects energy from sunlight or inorganic substances to produce food |
| heterotroph | an organism that gets its energy requirements by consuming other organisms |
| heterotrophs | also called consumers |
| herbivore | a hetertroph that only eats plants such as a cow, rabbit, grasshopper |
| carnivores | heterotrophs that prey on othe rheterotrohs |
| omnivores | organisms that eat both plants and animals |
| examples of omnivores | bears, humans and mockingbirds |
| detritivores | each fragments of dead matter in the ecosystem, return nutrients to the soil, air and water where the nutrients can be reused by organisms |
| examples of detritivores | worms and many aquatic insects that live on stream bottoms |
| decomposers | break down dead organisms by releasing digestive enzymes; simiarl to detritivores |
| examples of decomposers | fungi and bacteria |
| trophic level | each step in a food chain or food web |
| autotrophs | make up the first level trophic level in all ecosystems |
| heterotrophs | make up the remaining levels of ecosystems |
| food chain | a simple model that shows how energy flows through an ecosystem |
| food web | a model representing the many interconnected food chains and pathways in which energy flows through a group of organisms |
| pyramid of energy | each level in this pyramid represents the amount of energy that is available to that tropic level. With each step up there is an energy loss of 90%. |
| pyramid of biomass | in this pyramid, each level represents the amount of biomass consumed by the level above it |
| pyramid of numbers | in this pyramid each level represents the number of individual organisms consumed by the level above it |
| ecological pyramids | a diagram taht can show the relative amounts of energy, biomass or numbers of organisms at each trophic level in an ecosystem |
| biomass | total mass of living matter at each trophic level--decreases at each level |
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