Food Chains
What is a producer?
A producer is an organism which can use an outside energy source to produce its own food.
What is a trophic or energy pyramid?
A trophic pyramid is a model which shows the amount of energy available in each step of a food chain.
What is a population?
A population is the group of organisms of one species that is living in one place at one time.
What is a limiting factor?
Any factor which would stop a population from growing.
What is a consumer?
A consumer is an organism which gets its energy from eating other organisms.
Which level on a tropic pyramid represents the producers in an ecosystem?
The bottom level
What is a community?
A community is all of the living organisms that are living in one place at one time.
What is carrying capacity?
The carrying capacity is the largest number of organisms of a species that an ecosystem can support.
What is a decomposer?
A decomposer (or detritivore) is an organism which eats or breaks down dead organisms for its energy.
Which level on a trophic pyramid represents the apex predators of an ecosystem?
The top level.
Which one is larger: a population or a community?
A community
A population of polar bears traditionally hunts on the ice sheets north of Canada. As global temperatures rise, the ice is melting and decreasing the places where polar bears can hunt. What is the limiting factor for the polar bears?
The ice sheet size, or the temperature
What is a food chain?
A food chain is a simple model that shows how energy moves through organisms by feeding relationships.
How much energy is transferred from one level to the next level as we go up a trophic pyramid?
Ten percent or 10% of the energy is transferred.
Which one is larger: the community or the organism?
What is the difference between a density-dependent and density-independent limiting factor?
Density-dependent limiting factors care about the size of a population, while density independent limiting factors do not care about the size of a population.
Construct a food chain with the following four organisms:
A rabbit, a snake, a carrot plant, and a hawk.
Carrot plant -> Rabbit -> Snake -> Hawk
Given that an ecosystem has 500 producers, how many primary consumers can that ecosystem support?
50 primary consumers, which is 10% of the number of producers.
Which is larger: The biosphere or the biome?
The biosphere
A volcanic eruption in Iceland causes a drop in the reindeer population. Is this an example of a density-dependent or density independent limiting factor?
A density-independent limiting factor.