20 Questions
Which organisms are at the beginning of a food chain?
Primary producers
What happens when one organism eats another?
Energy moves from the eaten to the eater
What is a food chain?
A series of organisms in which energy is transferred from one organism to another
In Gorongosa National Park, what feeds on primary producers like grass?
Antelope
In aquatic ecosystems, what are the primary producers?
Phytoplankton
How many steps removed from the primary producers are lions in Gorongosa National Park?
Two steps
Why are feeding relationships in most ecosystems more complicated than a simple chain?
Because animals eat more than one kind of food
What is a food web?
A network of feeding interactions
What do raccoons and moorhens eat?
Several species of plants
What do alligators and panthers often prey upon?
Raccoons and moorhens
Which term refers to a network that includes all the food chains in an ecosystem?
Food web
What is the role of decomposers and detritivores in food webs?
They convert dead material to detritus, which is eaten by primary producers
Which organisms primarily feed on primary producers, but most producers die without being eaten?
White-tailed deer, raccoons, shrimp, and flagfish
What is the term for each step in a food chain or food web?
Trophic level
What is the shape of a pyramid of energy in a food chain or food web?
Triangle
On average, how much of the energy available within one trophic level is transferred to the next trophic level?
10 percent
What is the term for the total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level?
Biomass
What does a pyramid of biomass illustrate?
The relative amount of living organic matter in each trophic level
What is a pyramid of numbers used to represent in an ecosystem?
The relative number of individual organisms at each trophic level
In some cases, the normal pyramid of numbers may be turned upside down, but the pyramid of biomass usually has the normal orientation.
True
Test your knowledge on how energy flows through an ecosystem! Learn about the transfer of energy from primary producers to consumers and understand the one-way direction of energy flow. Explore the variations in feeding relationships across different ecosystems.
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