Food Chains & Webs
In an aquatic food chain, which organism is typically the primary producer?
a) Zooplankton
b) Phytoplankton
c) Small fish
d) Bacteria
What is Phytoplankton?
In an energy pyramid, the base represents
What is producers?
The source of energy for most food webs
What is the sun?
The study of interactions between organisms and their environment
What is ecology?
The process by which water moves through the environment is called:
What is the water cycle?
Which of the following represents the correct order in a marine food chain?
a) Phytoplankton → zooplankton → small fish → large fish
b) Zooplankton → phytoplankton → large fish → small fish
c) Small fish → phytoplankton → zooplankton → large fish
d) Large fish → small fish → zooplankton → phytoplankton
What is A?
Organisms at the second trophic level
What is primary consumers?
Percentage of energy transferred from one trophic level to the next
What is 10%
A group of individuals of the same species living in the same area
What is population?
Biodiversity
What is the variety of life in an ecosystem?
Organisms that break down dead organic matter and recycle nutrients.
What are decomposers?
Trophic level that contains the most energy in an ecosystem
What is Producers?
What happens to the other 90% of energy that is not passed to the next trophic level
What is lost as heat, used for life processes, or remains in waste?
The maximum population size that an environment can support is called:
a) Population density
b) Carrying capacity
c) Limiting factor
d) Growth rate
What is population density?
Describe an estuary.
What is where freshwater and saltwater meet?
The main difference between a food chain and a food web
What is food chains are linear, and food webs show multiple interconnected feeding relationships?
A great white shark that eats seals would be classified as a(n):
What is a tertiary consumer or higher?
If a lake has 100,000 kcal of energy stored in phytoplankton, how much energy would be available to tertiary consumers?
What is 100kcal?
All the different populations living together in the same area make up a:
What is a community?
Symbiosis:
Mutualism:
Parasitism:
Commensalism:
A close relationship between two species
A relationship where both species benefit
A relationship where one benefits and one is harmed
A relationship where one benefits and the other is unaffected
How can invasive species disrupt a food web
outcompeting natives for food/habitat
preying on them
introducing diseases
altering environments
causing native species decline or extinction
shifting energy flow
changing ecosystem structure by altering predator-prey dynamics and creating new, unbalanced feeding relationships.
Autotroph vs. Heterotroph
What is an organism that makes its own food through photosynthesis vs. An organism that must consume other organisms for energy?
Explain why energy pyramids are always pyramid-shaped and can never be inverted.
What is the energy loss (mostly as heat) at each step as it moves up trophic levels, meaning less energy is available at higher levels, preventing inversion?
The specific role an organism plays in its ecosystem
What is niche/ecological niche?
An invasive species is best defined as:
a) Any species that lives in water
b) A non-native species that causes harm to the environment, economy, or human health
c) A species that is endangered
d) A species that is a top predator
What is a non-native species that causes harm to the environment, economy, or human health?