Trophic Levels
The lowest trophic level, made up of organisms that make their own food.
What are producers?
A region defined by its climate, plants, and animals.
What is a biome?
A simple chain showing who eats whom is called this.
What is a food chain?
The number of individuals per unit area.
What is population density?
Burning fossil fuels releases this gas that traps heat.
What is carbon dioxide?
Animals that eat only plants belong to this trophic level.
What are primary consumers?
This biome is the largest on Earth, covering most of the planet’s surface.
What is the ocean biome?
A network of interconnected food chains.
What is a food web?
The maximum number of individuals an environment can support.
What is carrying capacity?
Cutting down large areas of forest for farming or building is known as this.
What is deforestation?
These organisms feed on secondary consumers.
What are tertiary consumers?
An ecosystem with permafrost, low precipitation, and short growing seasons.
What is the tundra?
Only about this percent of energy moves from one trophic level to the next.
What is 10%?
A population growth model shaped like a J-curve.
What is exponential growth?
When harmful substances build up in the air, water, or soil, it’s called this.
What is pollution?
Organisms that break down dead matter and recycle nutrients.
What are decomposers?
The type of biome that we live in?
What are Temperate Grasslands?
When a top predator’s removal causes large changes across the ecosystem.
What is a trophic cascade?
Factors like disease or competition that affect populations more as density increases.
What are density-dependent factors?
When non-native species disrupt an ecosystem.
What is an invasive species?
A diagram that shows the relative amount of energy at each trophic level.
What is an energy pyramid?
All biomes across the planet make up what Earth sphere?
The total amount of energy produced by photosynthesizers in an ecosystem.
What is gross primary productivity (GPP)?
The measure of how individuals are spaced out—uniform, random, or clumped.
What is population placement?
The measure of how much land and water a human population uses to support itself.
What is an ecological footprint?