Ecology Chapter 3

The study of the interactions of organisms with one another and their environment.

Individual/species, population, community, ecosystem, biome, and biosphere.

They are the living components of an ecosystem, such as animal interaction, plants/fungi/protists, and bacteria.

They are the non-living components of an ecosystem, such as temperature, precipitation, soil characteristics, and sunlight.

They are organisms that produce energy-rich compounds, such as plants, certain species of bacteria, and algae.

The process of converting CO2 + H2O into sugars + oxygen using sunlight energy.

The use of chemical energy from CO2, hydrogen sulfide, and oxygen to produce carbohydrates (no light).

Chemosynthesis makes this possible.

Chemosynthetic organisms (bacteria) prevent oceans from becoming toxic.

What happens is that grazers such as snails, limpets, and scale worms eat the microbial mat, and predators come to eat those grazers.

They are organisms that rely on other organisms for energy and nutrients.

They are a type of consumer that kills and eats other animals.

They are a type of consumer that consumes carcasses.

They are a type of composer that chemically breaks down organic matter.

Small pieces of decaying plant and animal remains that decomposers produce.

They are a type of consumer that feeds on the detritus produced by decomposers, like earthworms.

They are a type of consumer that eats plants.

They are a type of consumer that eats plants and animals.

It is a diagram that shows how energy in food flows from one organism to another.

It is a diagram that shows the feeding interactions between organisms in an ecosystem.

The link is that each path through a food web is a food chain. A food web connects all of the food chains in an ecosystem together.

They are species that are so crucial that a single change in their population causes dramatic changes in the structure of their ecosystem.

Each step in a food chain or food web

Primary producers always make up the 1st trophic level while various consumers occupy every other level.

They show the relative amount of energy contained within each trophic level in a given food chain or food web

Pyramids of energy, pyramids of biomass, and pyramids of numbers.

It is a diagram that shows an ecosystem's loss of energy, which results as energy passes through the ecosystem's food chain.

About 10% of the energy available within one trophic level is transferred to the next trophic level.

The total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level.

They illustrate the relative amount of living organic matter at each trophic level.

They show the relative number of individual organisms at each trophic level.

The water cycle and nutrient cycles.

The carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and the phosphorus cycle.

The 1st step of the carbon cycle is that plants pull CO2 from the atmosphere.

The 2nd step of the carbon cycle is that animals eat the plants that pull CO2 from the atmosphere and release some CO2 by respiration.

The 3rd step of the carbon cycle is that animals eventually die, causing CO2 to return to the atmosphere after their bodies decompose.

The 4th step of the carbon cycle is that some CO2 (from the carcasses of animals) ends up in deposits underground called fossil fuels.

It is in the atmosphere.

It is an essential component of DNA, RNA, and proteins.

The irony is that although the majority of the air we breathe is nitrogen, most living organisms are unable to use nitrogen (as it exists in the atmosphere).

The 1st step of the nitrogen cycle is that bacteria convert nitrogen gas into ammonia so plants can take in the nitrogen (nitrogen fixation).

The 2nd step of the nitrogen cycle is that consumers eat the producers (filled with nitrogen) and reuse nitrogen to make their own nitrogen-containing compounds. They also release some nitrogen as waste.

The 3rd step of the nitrogen cycle is that a small amount of nitrogen gas is converted to usable forms by lightning in a process called atmospheric nitrogen fixation.

The 4th step of the nitrogen cycle is that humans add nitrogen to the biosphere through the manufacture and use of fertilizers.

The symbiotic relationship is that bacteria live in the roots of legume family plants and provide the plants with ammonia in exchange for the plant's carbon and a protected home.

The 1st step of the phosphorus cycle is that weathering releases phosphorus from rocks.

The 2nd step of the phosphorus cycle is that plants bind phosphate into organic compounds from soil or water.

The 3rd step of the phosphorus cycle is that after plants bind phosphate into organic compounds, phosphate moves through the food web and the rest washes into bodies of water.