Food Webs and Energy Transfer Lecture Review

Flashcards covering key vocabulary related to food webs, energy transfer, trophic levels, and biomagnification as discussed in your lecture notes.

Food Web Arrows

Indicate the direction of energy transfer, pointing from the organism where the energy originates to the organism that consumes it.

Trophic Levels

Hierarchical levels in an ecosystem, representing an organism's position in a food chain or food web based on its primary source of nutrition.

Primary Producer

Organisms, typically plants (like grass), that produce their own food through photosynthesis; the base of a food web.

Primary Consumer

Herbivores that feed directly on primary producers (e.g., a mouse eating grass, a grasshopper eating tall grass).

Secondary Consumer

Carnivores or omnivores that feed on primary consumers (e.g., a snake eating a mouse, a meadowlark eating a grasshopper).

Tertiary Consumer

Carnivores or omnivores that feed on secondary consumers (e.g., a hawk eating a snake or a meadowlark).

Second Law of Thermodynamics

States that energy transfer is not 100% efficient, and some energy is lost as unusable heat during metabolism and respiration.

10% Rule

Only about 10% of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next; the remaining 90% is typically lost as heat.

Food Chain Link Length

The number of trophic levels in a food chain, typically limited to about 3.5 links due to energy loss at each transfer.

Persistent Chemicals

Toxic chemicals that do not break down easily in the environment and can accumulate over time; also known as 'forever chemicals'.

Fat-Soluble Toxins

Chemicals that dissolve in fat and accumulate in the tissues of organisms, meaning they are not easily excreted.

Water-Soluble Toxins

Chemicals that dissolve in water and are typically filtered by kidneys and excreted from an organism's body.

Biomagnification

The increasing concentration of a toxic substance in the tissues of organisms at progressively higher levels of a food chain due to fat-soluble properties.

Bioaccumulation

The gradual accumulation of substances, such as pesticides or other chemicals, in an organism, often referring to accumulation within a single organism's lifespan.

Silent Spring

A famous book by Rachel Carson that brought attention to the biomagnification of toxic chemicals like DDT, particularly their effects on bird populations.

Mercury Contamination in Fish

An example of biomagnification where mercury accumulates in fish tissues, especially in older and larger predatory fish, leading to consumption warnings.