Ecosystems Basics
A community of living and non-living things interacting with each other in a specific environment.
What is an ecosystem?
This is the difference between biotic and abiotic factors.
Biotic factors are living; abiotic factors are non-living.
An organism that makes its own food, like plants.
What is a producer?
Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and transpiration are parts of this cycle.
What is the water cycle?
Photosynthesis takes place in this organelle.
What is the chloroplast?
All members of the same species in a certain environment.
What is a population?
Name two biotic factors and two abiotic factors in a forest ecosystem.
Biotic - trees, deer; Abiotic - soil, sunlight
What happens if one species in a food chain is removed?
It disrupts the balance, affecting all species in the chain
These processes release carbon into the atmosphere.
What is respiration, decomposition, and combustion?
This is the process that all cells do to release energy from food.
What is cellular respiration.
True or False: A rotting log can be an ecosystem.
True
This abiotic factor is the source of energy in an ecosystem.
What is sunlight?
Why are decomposers important for ecosystems?
They recycle nutrients back into the soil
What are bacteria?
Plants need these three abiotic factors to perform photosynthesis.
What is sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide?
The role of an organism in the ecosystem, including what it eats and where it lives.
What is a niche?
True or False: Water is an abiotic factor.
What is true.
In a food web, what would happen if all producers disappeared?
The entire food web would collapse because producers are the base of the energy pyramid.
Plants _________ carbon during photosynthesis, helping to move it in the carbon cycle. (absorb or release)
What is absorb?
Cellular respiration takes place in this organelle.
What is mitochondria?
In an energy pyramid, energy flows from the _______ of the pyramid to the ________.
What is bottom to the top?
These abiotic factors make living in a desert challenging for plants and animals.
What is lack of water, extreme temperatures, and limited shelter?
Name a primary consumer, a secondary consumer, and a decomposer in a pond ecosystem.
Primary - tadpoles; Secondary - fish; Decomposer - fungi
This is the movement of water vapor through plants as part of the water cycle.
What is transpiration?
Photosynthesis and cellular respiration balance each other because...
...the ingredients for one are the products of the other.