What is the ultimate source of enery for all living things?
The sun
How do heterotrophs access the sun’s energy?
Energy enters communities by autotrophs (do photosynthesis), heterotrophs then eat other organisms to access this energy
What are the names of the trophic levels? and what are the categories of the second one?
- Producers (photosynthetic)
- Consumers (heterotrophic)
- Primary consumers (eat producers)
- Secondary consumers (eat primary cons.)
- Tertary consumers (eat secondary cons.)
- Quaternary consumers (eat tertary cons.)
Are food webs more descriptive than food chains?
Yes because they show all possible trophic levels for an organism
How does energy flows through an ecosystem?
One way (it is not recycled)
What is the net primary production? And its units?
The amount of energy that the producers of an ecosystem trap and make available for consumers.
in kJ/m^2 yr or kg/m^2 yr
What is biomass? How can it be used?
Its the mass of living tissue
Can be used to indicate the energy contained in each trophnic level
Amount of biomass is proportional to amount of energy
