Ecosystems
What is an ecosystem?
The living and nonliving things in an area that interact with eachother
What does a food chain show?
Feeding relationships in an ecosystem
What is a producer?
An organism that makes its own food
What is a decomposer?
An organism that breaks down waste and dead plants and animals.
True or False: All food chains start with a consumer.
FALSE!
Give an example of an ecosystem.
Answers may vary. Examples: pond, forest, coral reef, tundra, rainforest, etc.
What is the source of energy for all food chains?
The sun
What is a consumer that only eats plants called?
Herbivore
Name two decomposers
fungi, mushrooms, bacteria, earthworms, mold
A bear eats fish and berries. Is it a herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore?
Omnivore
True or False: Nonliving things like water and sunlight are part of an ecosystem.
True
Create a food chain with the following organisms: mouse, hawk, snake, grass
grass to mouse to snake to hawk
What do omnivores eat?
What do omnivores eat?
Why are decomposers important to an ecosystem?
They break down the waste and return nutrients back to the soil.
What could happen if a top predator goes extinct?
The top predators prey population would grow too large and eat too many plants an that would cause an unbalanced in the ecosystem.
What happens when one species disappears from an ecosystem?
It can affect other things in the ecosystem. For example, it would affect the organisms that it eats and the organisms that eat it.
What do arrows in a food chain represent?
The flow of energy
Are humans producers or consumers
consumers
Where do decomposers get their energy?
From dead plants and animals
What’s the role of sunlight in ecosystems?
It gives the producers energy
Give two examples of living and two of nonliving parts of an ecosystem.
Living: lots of different examples
Nonliving: soil, air, water, rocks
What’s the difference between a food chain and a food web?
A food web shows many connected food chains.
Where do producers get the material that they need to grow?
From air and water- mostly air
What would happen if there were no decomposers?
Waste would build up and nutrients wouldn't be returned to the soil. BONUS: then the plants wouldn't be as healthy and wouldn't have space to grow so they would start to die and then the consumers who eat plants would lose their food source and die, and then the other consumers would also lose their food source and die.
Draw what a food web might look like in a forest. Include the following organisms: oak trees, shrubs, ferns, grass, squirrel, deer, caterpillar, rabbit, fox, bird hawk, snake, earthworm, owl, mushrooms
Add more if you would like.
Need to see answers