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SECTION 53.1 – How does the energy flow through ecosystems? Define autotrophs an

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Question

SECTION 53.1 – How does the energy flow through ecosystems?

Define autotrophs and describe their role in ecosystems.

What two ways do primary producers use chemical energy?

What is the equation for calculating Net Primary Production?

What is the name of the amount of energy that is available to organisms from primary producers?

What percentage of solar energy are primary producers converting to chemical energy?

Of the amount that is converted, what percentage goes towards NPP and what percentage goes towards cellular respiration?

What are the 4 reasons why plants in temperate forest are so inefficient at converting solar energy?

Diagram the flow of energy in an ecosystem. Include in your diagram both trophic level and feeding strategy.

True/False: Only live primary producers provide energy to higher levels within a food chain.

What is the percentage of energy that is transferred between trophic levels?

What is meant by biomagnification?

Given what you already know about biomes, list the six terrestrial biomes in order from most productive to least productive. Next to each biome give a general description of the precipitation and temperature of those biomes, which is an indicator of the primary productivity of the biome.


SECTION 53.2 – How do nutrients cycle through ecosystems?

Diagram the following cycles: general terrestrial nutrient cycle, water cycle, nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle.

Usually the limiting factor in a cycle is the decomposition of detritus. What 3 types of factors influence decomposition rate?

Why do farms do poorly when they were created by clearing a rainforest?

Human activities increase the rate of exports of nutrients out of an ecosystem. What are 4 major mechanisms to replace the nutrients that have been removed?

True/False. Humans are depleting fresh ground water is evidence that humans have reached their carrying capacity on the planet.

True/False. Human activities are decreasing the amount of nitrogen that is added into terrestrial ecosystems.

What are some consequences for heavy increases in nitrogen input for ecosystems?

Explanation / Answer

How does energy flow through ecosystems?

Ecosystems keep cycling energy and nutrients obtained from external sources. In the first trophic level, the primary producers (plants, algae and some bacteria) use solar energy to produce organic plant material through photosynthesis. The herbivores, animals that feed exclusively on plants, constitute the second trophic level. Predators that eat herbivores comprise the third trophic level; if there are larger predators, they represent even higher trophic levels. Organisms that feed on various trophic levels (for example, brown bears that eat berries and salmon) are classified at the highest of the trophic levels on which they feed. Decomposers, which include bacteria, fungi, mold, worms and insects, break down waste and dead organisms and return nutrients to the soil.

Define autotroph and describe its role in ecosystems.

The autotrophs in a mixing ecology, an organism that serves as the producer of the food chain. Autotroph obtain energy and nutrients through the use of sunlight for photosynthesis (photoautotroph), or, rarely, the chemical industry obtained oxidation (chemoautotrophs) to produce organic compounds substances. In other organisms of the autotrophs consumes it; However, consumption heterotrophs.

In what two ways do the primary producers use chemical energy?

Plants in an ecosystem are considered primary producers because they supply almost all of the energy, or food, that other species need to survive. The plants - including flowers, trees, seaweed, algae and much more - are not sustained by other species in the ecosystem, but by mere sunlight. Through photosynthesis, plants are converted into chemical energy in the form of sugars, which they essentially use to feed themselves. In addition, these sugars combine to form cellulose, the fundamental construction of the plant itself.

What is the equation to calculate the net primary production?

Just Primary Productivity (NPP), or the production of vegetable biomass, is equal to all carbon tasks through vegetation through photosynthesis (called gross primary production or GPP) minus the carbon lost in respiration.

NPP = GPP - breathing