Ecosystem Basics
This is a community of living and nonliving things interacting in one area.
What is an ecosystem?
Energy in an ecosystem does this, not cycle.
What is flow?
This model shows one path of energy flow.
What is a food chain?
An organism that eats other organisms for energy.
What is a consumer?
If rabbits disappeared, this animal might decrease.
What is the fox?
This is the original source of energy for most ecosystems.
What is the Sun?
Energy moves from the Sun to these organisms first.
What are producers?
This model shows many connected food chains.
What is a food web?
An organism that makes its own food, usually through photosynthesis.
What is a producer?
If rabbits disappeared, this organism might increase.
What is grass?
Name two nonliving parts of an ecosystem.
What are sunlight, water, air, or soil? (Any two)
After consumers use energy, it is eventually lost as this.
What is heat?
In the food chain Sun → Grass → Rabbit → Fox, this organism is the producer.
What is grass?
The role of decomposers in an ecosystem.
What is they return nutrients to the soil by breaking down dead matter?
If decomposers were removed, this would build up.
What is dead plants and animals (dead matter)?
These organisms make their own food.
What are producers?
Put these in order: Consumers, Sun, Decomposers, Producers.
What is Sun → Producers → Consumers → Decomposers?
In the same food chain, name the consumers.
What are the rabbit and the fox?
Why are producers important to all other organisms?
What is they make the energy that supports all life?
If decomposers were removed, this would not return to the soil.
What are nutrients?
These organisms break down dead plants and animals.
What are decomposers?
Explain how energy moves through a food chain.
What is energy flows from the Sun to producers, then to consumers, and finally to decomposers?
Compare a food chain and a food web.
What is both show energy flow; a food chain shows one path, while a food web shows many paths?
Identify the roles in this chain: Sun → Grass → Rabbit → Fox.
What is Grass–Producer; Rabbit–Consumer; Fox–Consumer?
Explain what would happen to an ecosystem if decomposers were removed.
What is dead matter would build up and nutrients would not return to the soil, affecting producers and the whole ecosystem?