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12 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Biotic components |
Living parts of an ecosystem, i.e. the community |
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Abiotic components |
Non-living parts of an ecosystem, i.e. air, wind, water, soil, minerals, climate |
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What is the biosphere? |
Part of the earth, a few kilometres thick, inhabited by organisms |
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What is an ecosystem? |
A community of interdependent organisms and the physical environment they inhabit |
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What is a food chain? |
A representation of energy flow from prey to predator |
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What does a food chain consist of? |
Producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer |
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What is a food web? |
A representation of the complex feeding relationships that exist between species |
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What is a tropic level? |
The position that an organism occupies in a food chain, or a group of organisms in a community that occupy the same position in food chains |
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What is a pyramid of numbers? |
Represents the number of organisms (producers and consumers) coexisting in an ecosystem |
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What are the strengths of pyramids of numbers? |
- A simple method of giving overview of community structure - Good for comparing changes in a number of individuals overtime |
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What are the weaknesses of pyramids of numbers? |
- They do not take into account size of organisms - Numbers can be too great to represent accurately - Some animals feed at more than one tropic level (omnivorous), thus can be difficult to place. |
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What is a pyramid of biomass? |
Shows the biological mass at each tropic level. Each tropic level is measured in grams of biomass per square meter (gm^-2) or kilograms per square meter (kgm^-2) or units of energy (Jm^-2) |
