Ecology/Matter cycles

The diagram below shows the cycling of nutrients in an ecosystem.
The removal of which of the following groups would cause an immediate decrease in the amount of energy flowing through the system?

• Producers
• Consumers
• Decomposers
• Inorganic nutrients

An organism that produces its own food supply from inorganic compounds is called a(an)

• heterotroph
• consumer
• detritivore
• autotroph

What is an ecological model of the relationships that form a network of complex interactions among organisms in a community from producers to decomposers?

• food web

• an ecosystem

• food chain

• a population

What is the term for each step in the transfer of energy and matter within a biological community?

• energy path
• food web
• trophic level
• food pyramid

symbiotic relationship in which both organisms benefit

• competition
• Mutualism
• nitrogen fixation
• energy pyramid

What does a food web represent?

• All connections of energy flow throughout all organisms in a habitat.
• The specific ways that mutualism is carried out.
• A single pathway or energy flow between organisms. 
• How carnivores get their food. 

diagram that shows the energy available to each trophic level in an ecosystem; 10% is passed on to upper levels, the rest is lost as heat

• succession 
• cellular respiration
• energy pyramid
• biochemical cycle

Members of a species in a defined area

• Ecosystem
• community
• biodiversity
• population

Non-living factor that affects an ecosystem

• biotic factor
• abiotic factor
• food chain 
• biome

Organisms that breaks down and absorbs nutrients from dead organisms 

• consumer
• trophic level
• decomposer
• species