Trophic Terms
What is an autotroph?
An organism that produces its own food.
What is a population?
All organisms of the same species living in close proximity.
What is the type of symbiosis between a deer and grass?
Predation
Which of the trophic levels have the most stored energy available?
Producer
What is the definition and an example of a keystone species?
A species that affects its environment disproportionately to its biomass or number.
What is a heterotroph?
An organism that cannot make its own food.
All the different species of an ecosystem are referred to as the...
community
What is the type of symbiosis between bees and flowers?
Mutualism
What is a trophic cascade? What are the interactions for trophic cascades between species?
A trophic cascade is when the addition or removal of a high trophic level predator affects a mid-tier trophic level that creates indirect interactions throughout the ecosystem.
What is the ten percent rule for energy transfer in ecology?
The ten percent rule of energy transfer states that each level in an ecosystem only gives 10% of its energy to the levels above it.
What is a primary consumer? What does it eat?
An herbivore.
What are examples of producers?
Plants, phytoplankton
What is the type of symbiosis between bird nests and trees?
Commensalism
What would happen to producers with an increase of secondary consumers?
Producers would increase as herbivores decrease.
What happens to biomass as trophic levels increase?
Biomass decreases due to less energy available.
What is a secondary consumer? What does it eat?
It eats herbivores.
What is a detritovore? What are some examples?
A type of decomposer that eats dead organic matter. Worms, vultures.
What type of symbiosis would barnacles living on whales be?
Commensalism
What is an example of an increase of intraspecific competition?
What is bottom-up regulation and an example?
When limited resources affect trophic levels in an ecosystem. Producers regulate trophic levels.
Phytoplankton in the ocean affecting fish and dolphin populations.
What is a tertiary consumer? What does it eat?
It eats carnivores.
What is a saprovore? What are examples?
A type of decomposer that eats dead organic matter. Bacteria and fungi.
What is the type of symbiosis between the algae and fungi in lichen and why?
Mutualism because the fungus gives the algae nitrogen and the algae gives the fungus carbon.
What is biomagnification?
The gradual accumulation of a substance, such as pesticides or other chemicals, in an organism
If a cougar eats a hare that has a total of 350 kilocalories of food energy, how many kilocalories are converted to biomass if the cougar loses 85 percent of the food energy to waste and cellular respiration?
52.5 Kilocalories