Record the definitions for these key terms in your science notebooks

1. 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 Record the definitions for these key terms in your science notebooks

2. Ecosystems and Energy Flow

3. Why do we eat food? • Where does the food we eat get its energy? Does the food we eat also need energy?

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

5. Where does all energy in an ecosystem come from?

6. The flow of energy from one organism to another What is the food chain showing?

7. A food web What is the representation of energy flow called?

8. What is the difference between a food chain and a food web?

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

10. Because the arrow shows the transfer of energy. The animal that is being eaten transfers some energy to the animal that eats it Why does the arrow point away from the organism that is being eaten?

11. Trophic Levels

12. 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 Energy Pyramid

13. Producers • Primary Production provides energy to the ecosystem • Primary production varies among ecosystems Which types of organisms receive their energy directly from the sun

14. 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

15. Organisms that obtain energy from the consumption of organic compounds by other organisms are heterotrophs • Heterotrophs can be herbivors, carnivors, detritivores, omnivores Heterotrophs

16. Consumers of primary producers, herbivores, are called primary consumers Primary Consumers

17. 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 Secondary ConsumersTertiary Consumers

18. 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 Detritivores

19. 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 Decomposers

20. Microorganisms help recycle nutrients from dead/decaying matter into living organisms What is the importance of microorganisms w/in ecosystems?

21. Does energy accumulate in an ecosystem? • Does a top predator have all the energy? • Do producers receive their energy through the absorption of nutrients? • Is a species high on the food web a predator to everything below?