BIO 150 Lecture Notes 02 (Week 1) ECOSYSTEM COMPONENTS: Biotic Roles and Relationships

Biotic Components

__________________ – Can be classified according to their functional role in the ecosystem (reflecting feeding relationships)

Producers

____________ – produce their own food; autotroph (“self-feeding”); supplies the needed vitamins, minerals, and energy for consumers

Photoautotroph

__________________ – energy for making food is obtained from radiant energy; process of making food is called photosynthesis

Chemoautotroph

__________________ – energy for making food is obtained from oxidation of inorganic chemicals; process of making food is called chemosynthesis

Consumers; grazing food chain

_____________ – 1°, 2°, 3°…; Includes all animals which feed directly or indirectly on producers for food; heterotrophs; part of the _________________

Herbivores; Omnivores

____________ (1° consumers) – feed only on producers; different plant-feeding strategies; they regulate the growth of plants and, if the grazing pressure is not too high, they may even encourage abundant re-growth; they also act as pollinators

_____________ – feed on both plants and animals

• Frugivores

• Folivores

• Nectarivores

________________ – eat fruits

________________ – graze or browse on leaves and/or twigs (e.g. grazers and browsers)

________________ – feed on nectar

Granivores

Palynivores

Mucivores

Xylophages

______________ – eat seeds

______________ – feed on pollen

______________ – sip plant fluids

______________ – eat wood

Carnivores; 2° consumers; 3° and higher level consumers

_____________ – animals that feed directly on other animals (e.g. predators); act as natural enemies, maintain balance in the ecosystem

_____________ – feed only on herbivores

_____________ – feed only on other carnivores

Decomposers, Detritivores, Scavengers

detrital food chain

______________, _______________, ______________ – special type of consumers that thrive on decomposing matter or cast-off fragments of living organisms; participate in the _________________;

Decomposers, Detritivores, Scavengers

______________, _______________, ______________ – recycle matter into nutrients that are available for re-entry into the grazing food chain (this is a very important function; if nutrient cycling does not happen then all of life would cease)

Feeding Relationships; trophic level

_________________ – food produced by autotrophs is passed on to consumers; each level in the successive food/energy transfer is called a ___________;

Feeding Relationships

represented through food chain (single chain of feeding), food web (network of feeding relationships), or food pyramid (feeding relationships showing either biomass or energy contained at each level)