Ecosystem Energy and Biomass

Energy Flow

Energy flow is the transfer of energy from one organism to another in an ecosystem.


REMEMBER:
First Law of Thermodynamics
ENERGY CANNOT BE CREATED OR DESTROYED

Ecosystem

the interactions between the living and non-living things in any given area

Multiple Choice

Vocabulary:

The biotic and abiotic factors that work together in an area

• Abiotic

• Biotic

• Ecosystem

• Organism

Multiple Choice

All the living and nonliving things in an area

• Niche

• Habitat

• Population

• Ecosystem

Multiple Choice

What abiotic factors does this tree depend on?

• Water

• Insects

• Grass

• All of the above

Multiple Choice

Temperature, light, air, water, soil, and climate are all __________ parts of the environment.

• Biotic

• Abiotic

Multiple Choice

Vocabulary:

The living factors in an ecosystem

• Abiotic

• Biotic

• Ecosystem

• Organism

• Population

Multiple Choice

The following picture is an example of...

• population
• community
• microorganism
• predator

Energy

• Producers are organisms that get their energy from nonliving resources, meaning they make their own food; they're also called autotrophs.

• Consumers are organisms that get their energy by eating other living or once-living resources; they're also called heterotrophs.

• All ecosystems depend on the sun as their original source of energy.

Food Chains

• A food chain is a sequence that links species by their feeding relationships.

• This model chain only follows the connection between one producer and a single chain of consumers within an ecosystem. 

• The arrows point in the direction energy is flowing... towards the organism doing the consuming.

Multiple Choice

Which model correctly shows energy flow in a food chain?

Types of Consumers in a Food Web

• Herbivores- eat only plants

• Carnivores- eat only animals

• Omnivores- eat plants and animals

• Detritivores- eat detritus, or deadorganic matter

• Decomposers- break down organic matter into simpler compounds; important to the stability of an ecosystem because they return vital nutrients back into the environment

Multiple Choice

Who makes their own food?

• The Sun

• Producers

• Consumers

• Decomposers

Multiple Choice

Which animal is an omnivore?

• red fox

• black bear

• deer

• rabbit

Multiple Choice

Decomposers are important in the food chain because they:

• produce their own food using light from the Sun.

• stop the flow of energy from one organism to another.

• break down dead organisms and recycle nutrients into the soil.

• are microscopic and other organisms cannot consume them.

Match

Match the organisms from the food web to their role.

• phytoplankton

• krill

• squid

• human

producer

primary consumer

secondary consumer

tertiary consumer

• producer

• primary consumer

• secondary consumer

• tertiary consumer

Trophic Levels

1. Producers: at the bottom; hold the most energy

2. Primary consumers; eat producers

3. Secondary consumers; eat primary consumers

4. Tertiary consumers; eat secondary consumers

5. Quaternary consumers; eat tertiary consumers; usually an apex predator

Reorder

Reorder the following from sun to tertiary consumer

1

2

3

4

5

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Multiple Choice

What trophic level do the crabs belong to?

• Producer

• Primary consumer

• Secondary consumer

• Tertiary consumer

Energy Pyramid

• - shows the energy flow between trophic levels in an ecosystem.

• - total energy used by producers far exceeds the energy used by the consumers they support.

• - unit of measurement used to describe the amount of energy at each trophic level in an energy pyramid is the kilocalorie (kcal).

• - has a very large section at the base for the producers, and sections that become progressively smaller above.

• Because energy is lost at each stage of a food chain, the longer the chain is, the more energy is lost overall.

• Between each tier, up to 90 percent of the energy is lost as heat into the atmosphere; therefore, only 10% of the energy is moved to the next level.

Multiple Choice

In an energy pyramid, The energy increases as you move from the bottom to the top of the energy pyramid.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

The reason only 10% of energy is transferred up to the next trophic level is that 90% is lost as

• heat, only

• heat and waste

• nutrition

Multiple Choice

In healthy ecosystems

• there are many more producers than consumers

• thee are an equal number of producers and consumers

• consumers outnumber producers

Multiple Choice

In a healthy ecosystem, the organism with the smallest population would be

• plants

• grasshoppers

• eagles

• sparrows

Reorder

Reorder the following from least to most NPP.

least ------> most

• desert

• ocean

• South Carolina

• rainforest

1

2

3

4

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

10% Rule

90% of the energy entering each step of the pyramid is used up by the consumers, only 10% of the energy get stored. So, when the next level on the pyramid eats them, that 10% gets passed down to them.

Multiple Choice

If there are 50,000 Joules of Energy available at the producers level, how much will available in secondary consumer trophic level?

• 5000 Joules

• 5 Joules

• 50 Joules

• 500 Joules

Multiple Choice

In most energy pyramids, where would you find the most energy available?

• producers

• primary consumers

• secondary consumers

• tertiary consumers

Word Cloud

A primary consumer can only get 10% of what producers make, but, what determines how much energy producers like a trees can actually make?

Multiple Choice

The efficiency of energy transfer from a lower trophic level to the next highest level is roughly

• 1%
• 10%
• 100%
• 1000%

Multiple Choice

The energy pyramid shows the energy made by producers.

Based on the energy flow between trophic levels in an energy pyramid, how much energy would be expected to be found at the secondary consumer level in this pyramid?

• 100 joules

• 500 joules

• 1,000 joules

• 50 joules

Multiple Choice

A marine ecosystem is shown in the image.

What is lost to the environment at each of the trophic levels in the ecosystem?

• Nutrients from the soil

• Living space for the organisms

• Food sources

• Heat

Multiple Choice

• kelp to have less food.

• crabs to have more food.

• sea ducks to have less food.

• arctic foxes to have more food.

Multiple Choice

Multiple Choice

Which of the following would you most likely see at the bottom of an energy pyramid?

• Grass

• Mice

• Snakes

• Hawk

© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Gross primary productivity (GPP)

– Rate at which an ecosystem’s producers convert

radiant energy into chemical energy

• Net primary productivity (NPP)

– Rate at which producers use photosynthesis to

produce and store chemical energy, minus the
rate at which they use energy for cellular respiration

• A measure of the rate at which producers make

chemical energy potentially available to consumers

Primary Productivity

© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Despite low NPP, oceans produce most of the

world’s biomass because of their vast size.

• Tropical rain forests have high NPP due to

their great variety and abundance of plants.

• Only plant matter represented by NPP is

available as nutrients for consumers.

– The planet’s NPP ultimately limits the number of

consumers that can survive.

Ecosystems Vary in Their Net Primary Productivity (NPP)

Multiple Choice

Which number is always going to be larger?

• GPP

  Gross Primary Productivity

• NPP

  Net Primary Productivity

• could be either

• they are the same

Multiple Choice

Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) has to do with...

• how quickly herbivores eat producers

• how quickly carnivores eat herbivores

• how quickly chemical energy is made in the 1st trophic later

• how quickly energy is converted to the 2nd trophic level

Biomass Pyramid

Biomass- the total DRY MASS of organiams in a given area.
a diagram that compares the biomass of different trophic levels within an ecosystem
Notice biomass decreases as you go up trophic levels

Biomass example

Elephants are herbivores. They eat only plants, placing them on the second trophic level in an ecosystem. Since each adult African bush elephant weighs about 13,000 pounds (huge biomass!), they require a large amount of plant life in a large area to sustain the species. When studying the amount of biomass an ecosystem can support, we must consider both the number of individuals and their size.

Biomass Pyramid

• Biomass pyramid-
illustrates the mass of
producers needed to
support primary consumers,
the mass of primary
consumers needed to
support secondary
consumers, and so on up
the pyramid.

• Where is most of the
biomass according to this
diagram? Producer level

Numbers Pyramid

• - shows the number of individual organisms at each trophic level in an ecosystem.

• - particularly effective in showing the vast number of producers required to support even a few top level consumers

Multiple Choice

Which of the following would you most likely see at the top of a biomass pyramid in an ocean food chain?

• Plankton

• Small fish

• Large fish

• Great white shark

Multiple Choice

Why do organisms tend to be larger in size at higher trophic levels, but result in less biomass.

• Larger number of animals in higher trophic levels

• Fewer number of animals in higher trophic levels

• Due to the increase in temperature

• They are going extinct.

Multiple Choice

If these organisms were arranged in an ecological biomass pyramid, which organism would have the least amount of biomass?

• coyote
• insect
• lizard
• shrub

Multiple Choice

If the seeds, nuts, roots, grass, leaves, and flowers level had 1,000 kcal, how many kcal would be in the hawks and owls level?

• 1,000 kcal

• 100 kcal

• 10 kcal

• 1 kcal