General Knowledge
A linear sequence of organisms showing who eats whom in an ecosystem.
What is a food chain?
A type of pyramid showing the number of organisms at each trophic level.
What is a pyramid of numbers?
A type of pyramid showing the total mass of living matter at each trophic level.
What is a pyramid of biomass?
A type of pyramid that always narrows toward the top and shows energy available at each trophic level.
What is a pyramid of energy?
A diagram showing many interconnected food chains in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
The usual shape of a pyramid of numbers when the base has the most organisms and the top has the fewest.
What is upright?
The usual shape of a land-based biomass pyramid.
What is upright in pyramid of biomass?
The rule describing the approximate percentage of energy passed to the next trophic level.
What is the 10% rule?
Organisms that produce their own food and form the base of an ecosystem.
Who are producers?
The shape when a single large producer supports many organisms at higher levels.
What is inverted?
Tiny aquatic producers that can cause biomass pyramids to appear inverted.
What are phytoplankton in pyramid of biomass?
The energy passed to primary consumers if producers have 10,000 kJ of energy.
What is 1,000 kJ?
An organism’s feeding position in a food chain (e.g., primary, secondary, tertiary).
What is a trophic level?
The organisms placed at the bottom of a pyramid of numbers.
Who are producers in pyramid of numbers?
What is the reason some aquatic biomass pyramids are inverted?
Because producers have low standing mass but reproduce quickly.
What is the main ways energy is lost between trophic levels.
Through respiration and waste material
The approximate percentage of energy passed from one trophic level to the next.
What is 10%?
The organisms placed at the top of a pyramid of numbers.
Who are tertiary consumers in the pyramid of numbers?
The trophic level that usually has the greatest total mass in a biomass pyramid
Who are producers in pyramid of mass?
What is the reason an energy pyramid can never be inverted?
Energy decreases at each level, so less energy reaches higher trophic levels