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Why is trophic level an appropriate name to use for the levels in the food pyramid?
The first level in the food pyramid are producers or autotrophs that make their own food. The next level of the food pyramid are consumers, which are heterotrophs that can not make their own food.
What is a tick called that takes blood from people or other animals?
A parasite.
What type of organism stores energy from the sun in sugar molecules?
Producers. (plants)
The simple representation of materials and energy passing from producers through consumers.
food chain
Why are plants called producers?
Plants can produce their own food through photosynthesis.
What are the three primary parts of the water cycle?
evaporation, condensation, precipitation
A diagram that shows overlapping paths of energy in an ecosystem.
food web
Which cycle that you learned about water, nitrogen, and carbon includes bacteria in roots?
nitrogen cycle
Photosynthesis is included in which environmental cycle?
carbon and oxygen cycle
Why is it difficult to show an omnivore in the trophic levels of a food pyramid?
Because omnivores eat both plants and animals making them both herbivores and carnivores. This is difficult to display in the pyramid.
What types of organisms perform cellular respiration?
All living organisms perform cellular respiration because they all require energy to survive.
What did the food pyramid look like before the fall?
There were only two levels.
The bottom level was plants and the top level included all consumers. There were no carnivores, only herbivores.
When water is in the form of a gas in the atmosphere, we can not see it like steam. It is invisible to us. What is this form of water in the atmosphere called?
water vapor
An eagle attacks and kills a snake. This is an example of ______________.
predation
Which two biological processes connect the carbon and oxygen cycle?
cellular respiration and photosynthesis
To which cycle, water, carbon and oxygen, or nitrogen do fossil fuels belong?
carbon and oxygen cycles
What organisms occupy the lowest trophic level of an energy pyramid?
producers
(plants that are autotrophs making their own food)
Can plants use the nitrogen gas (N-N) directly from the atmosphere to produce proteins?
No, plants can not use nitrogen gas directly.
Lightning and bacteria convert nitrogen gas to nitrogen compounds that the plant can use.
Why is a food web more useful than a food chain?
The food web is more realistic of how organisms relate to each other. Each organism in a food chain is really part of multiple food chains.
Organisms occupy different levels of an energy pyramid. What are these levels called?
trophic levels
Why do organisms need nitrogen?
Nitrogen is needed to build proteins.
Why does energy not cycle through the environment like water, carbon, and oxygen?
Energy can't be recovered once it is lost or used.
What is the role of a decomposer?
Example: a bacteria that breaks down the dead bodies and waste of organisms?
They break down the waste and dead bodies back into useful nitrogen compounds.
Remember a nitrogen compound is nitrogen bonded with another element like oxygen or hydrogen.
Each higher trophic level (starting at the bottom) in an energy pyramid gets smaller than the level below it, why is this the case?
Only a small portion (10%) of the energy is passed up from trophic level to trophic level.
Can a food web be used to show all of the organisms in an ecosystem?
No, showing every organism would make the food web much too large and confusing. Usually just the primary organisms of an ecosystem will be shown.