What is an Ecosystem?
• All of the living and nonliving things in an area
• The prefix (a) means: NOT or No
• Examples:
– Atheist: No God
– Apathy: No Emotion
– Anemic: No Red Blood Cells
– Atypical: Not typical
– Anonymous: No author
– Anesthesia: Not aware or conscious
– Amnesia: No memory
– Aphotic: No light
ABIOTIC:
NON LIVING THINGS
• All of the energy flowing in an ecosystem
creates network of interconnected parts.
• There are 4 main components.
1. The Abiotic Environment
2. Primary Producers
3. Consumers
4. Decomposers
The Biotic Environment
Energy Source
= the nonliving…abiotic
factors of an ecosystem
Temperature
Amount of Rainfall
Soil
Rocks
Salinity
Minerals
Pollution
Etc…
Producers
Consumers
Decomposers
• All of the nonliving factors in an ecosystem.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Temperature
Rainfall
Amount of Sunlight
Soil Quality
Salinity
Air Quality
Etc…
• All of the
LIVING things in
an ecosystem.
•
•
•
•
•
Plants
Animals
Protists
Fungi
Bacteria
Plants
Animals
• The path that shows how
energy flows in an
ecosystem is
• a food chain.
• Put all the food chains in
an ecosystem together
for the complete
• food web.
Food chains show what eats what in order to gain the
energy it needs to live.
Food chains use arrows to show what eats what.
Eaten by:
Eaten by:
Food webs show the interconnected food chains in an ecosystem.
A change in any area of a food web will affect a different area.
Food chain
Food web
Nearly all food webs start with a green plant.
Green plants are called producers because they produce
their own food.
Animals are consumers.
Some consume plants to get the energy they need to live.
Others consume other animals.
Some animals are decomposers. (aka Scavengers)
Decomposers eat dead plants and animals.
Without decomposers, waste would pile up in an
ecosystem .
Scavengers are decomposers that SCAVENGE (look for) dead
organisms.
They are the largest decomposers.
Producers
Plants
Plant-Like Protists
or
Consumers
Herbivores
Carnivores
Omnivores
Insectivores
Decomposers
Scavengers
ETC….
Autotrophs
Heterotrophs
Make their own food
Don’t make their own food
Animals that eat plants are called Herbivores.
Herbivores have evolved to eat plants.
They have specialised teeth and stomachs to enable
them to get the energy they need from plants.
Animals that eat other animals are called Carnivores.
Carnivores have evolved to eat meat.
They have specialised teeth and stomachs to enable
them to get the energy they need from the bodies of
other animals.
Animals that eat plants and meat are called
Omnivores.
Humans are omnivores.
Omnivores have teeth and stomachs that enable them
to eat and digest both plants and meat.
Animals that are eaten by other animals are called
prey.
Some prey animals are herbivores.
Some omnivores and carnivores are also prey to
other animals.
Animals that eat other animals are called predators.
Some animals are predators and prey.
This means they eat some animals but are eaten by
others.
The top predator that is prey to no other animal is
called an apex predator.
Predators of decomposers:
Spider
Centipede
Salamander
Puffball
Mushroom
Millipede
Earthworm
Pillbugs
Bacteria and archaea
Primary
decomposers:
305 nm
Nematodes
49.4 µm
Of all the energy that reaches a plant…
0.8% energy
captured by
photosynthesis. Of
this...
55 % is lost to
Respiration
45% Supports Growth
and Reproduction
11% enters the
grazing food
web
34% enters the
decomposer food web as
dead material.
80.7% Respiration
Energy derived
from plants
1.6% growth and
reproduction
17.7% excretion
**New Vocabulary**
Trophic level Feeding strategy
4
Grazing food chain
Secondary carnivore
Cooper’s
hawk
3
Decomposer food chain
Owl
Carnivore
Robin
2
Herbivore
1
Autotroph
Shrew
Cricket
Earthworm
Maple tree leaves
Dead maple leaves
How much energy remains?
• An energy pyramid shows how energy
decreases through the food web.
An energy pyramid shows the available energy in a food chain.
The further along the food chain you go, the less food and energy is
available.
It decreases by about 10% at each stage of the pyramid.
Secondary Consumers
Primary Consumers
Producers
What ties it all together? CYCLES!