Energy Roles in Ecosystems Quiz

Producers

• Organisms that create their own food through photosynthesis.
• Examples include oak trees, flowers, and corn.

Consumers

• Organisms that cannot produce their own food.
• Classified into three types: herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.
• Examples include grasshoppers (herbivores), lions (carnivores), and humans (omnivores).

Types of Consumers

• Herbivore: Primarily eats plants; example is a bunny.
• Omnivore: Consumes both plants and animals; example is a human.
• Carnivore: Mainly eats other animals; example is a tiger.

Decomposers

• Organisms that break down dead plants and animals to recycle nutrients.
• Examples include bacteria, fungi, mushrooms, and termites.

Interrelationship of Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers

• Energy cycle: Producers create food, consumers eat producers, and decomposers return nutrients to the soil.
• Healthier producers lead to healthier consumers and decomposers in a continuous cycle.

Food Chain

• Represents the flow of energy in an ecosystem through a linear pathway.

Levels of Consumers in a Food Chain

• Primary Consumer: First level, eats producers (herbivore); an example is a grasshopper.
• Secondary Consumer: Second level, eats either producers or other consumers (carnivore or omnivore); an example is a snake.
• Tertiary Consumer: Third level, primarily eats secondary consumers (carnivores); an example is a hawk.

Food Web

• A diagram illustrating the complex feeding relationships and interactions among all organisms in an ecosystem.

Energy Flow in Ecosystems

• Energy transfers from one organism to the next as they consume each other.

Population Changes

• Major changes in population can occur, for instance, when a disease affects one species (e.g., grasshoppers), leading to cascading effects on predator populations (e.g., snakes) due to lack of food.