ecosystem

• The feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem can be seen in food chains.
• Sampling allows us to measure the abundance and distribution of these species.
• Predators and prey are examples of feeding relationships.
• Experimental methods using quadrats and transects are used to study feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
• Measuring population size in a habitat is a practical method for studying feeding relationships.
• The mean, median and mode are used to calculate averages in ecosystem studies.
• Materials are cycled in an ecosystem through the carbon and water cycles.
• An ecosystem can be categorized as a close ecosystem or a far ecosystem based on the interaction between a community and its environment.
• A community is defined as all the organisms that live in a habitat (plants and animals).
• An ecosystem is the interaction of two or more populations of organisms in their environment.
• Producers and consumers are examples of feeding relationships.
• Feeding relationships show what organisms eat or are eaten by others and through this the levels of organisation in an ecosystem.
• Food chains and food webs are ways of showing the feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
• A habitat is a place where plants, animals and microorganisms live.
• Algae subsumed within plants and some bacteria are also photosynthetic, converting energy from the sun into glucose during photosynthesis producing biomass.
• Animals that hunt and kill others are called predators, and those that are hunted and killed are called prey.
• Decomposers form a vital role in the recycling of matter.
• All animals above the producer are called consumers.
• Biomass is the dry mass of an organism, which feeds the rest of the food chain.
• The top animal in the feeding relationship is called the apex predator.
• The first is the primary consumer, an organism that eats a producer, such as a herbivore.
• Decomposers release enzymes onto the dead matter and afterwards, consume the broken down substances.
• The next is the secondary consumer, an organism that obtains its energy by eating the primary consumer.
• Photosynthesis is a chemical process used by plants to make glucose and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water, using light energy.
• When organisms die and decompose, plants absorb the broken down nutrients through their roots.
• Decomposers are bacteria and fungi, which break down dead organisms in a process called decomposition or rotting.
• Oxygen is produced as a by-product of photosynthesis.
• A simple example of a food chain is: grass → rabbits → foxes.
• At the base of almost every food chain is a producer, which are plants that begin food chains by making energy from carbon dioxide and water.