Food Webs and Energy Transfer

Flashcards covering key vocabulary related to food webs, trophic levels, energy transfer, and ecological principles from the lecture notes.

Trophic Level

A feeding level within an ecosystem.

Primary Producers

The base of any food pyramid, typically plants or photosynthetic organisms, which produce their own energy.

Primary Consumers

Organisms that eat primary producers (plants); also known as herbivores.

Secondary Consumers

Organisms that eat primary consumers (herbivores); also known as carnivores.

Tertiary Consumers

Organisms that eat secondary consumers (other carnivores).

Detritivores

Organisms that live off the wastes and dead remains of other organisms, breaking them down.

Autotrophs

Self-feeders; organisms, like plants, that produce their own food, usually through photosynthesis.

Net Primary Productivity (NPP)

The amount of energy accumulated by producers in grams of organic carbon per square meter per year, representing the new biomass available for higher trophic levels after the producers use energy for themselves.

Gross Primary Productivity (GPP)

The total amount of energy produced by the producers before accounting for the energy they use for their own metabolism.

Respiration (in plants)

The process by which plants use sugars and burn them to make ATP for their own metabolic activities, maintenance, and growth.

Heterotrophs

Other feeders; organisms that consume energy by eating other living things, rather than producing their own.

Food Chain

A simple, linear model showing who eats whom, illustrating the flow of energy from one trophic level to the next.

Food Web

A more accurate representation of feeding relationships in an ecosystem, showing the interconnections and multiple feeding pathways among organisms.

Decomposers

Organisms, primarily bacteria and fungi, that digest food outside their bodies and release nutrients into the soil and water.

First Law of Thermodynamics

States that energy cannot be created or destroyed; the total amount of energy in an ecosystem remains constant, though its form may change.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

States that disorder (entropy) naturally increases within the universe, meaning the transfer of energy is not 100% efficient, and some useful energy is lost as unusable heat.

10% Rule (Energy Transfer)

An ecological principle stating that, on average, only about 10% of the energy from one trophic level is transferred and incorporated into the next trophic level.

Energy Pyramid

A graphical model that illustrates the decrease in energy content at successive trophic levels, with the largest energy amount at the producer level and significantly less at higher consumer levels.