Organisation of an ecosystem

• Levels of organisation in an ecosystem:

  • An ecosystem is the interaction between a community of living organisms and their environment
  • A community consists of all the organisms that live in a habitat (plants and animals)
  • A population refers to all the members of a single species that live within a geographical area
• Feeding relationships in ecosystems:

  • Producers begin food chains by making energy from carbon dioxide and water through photosynthesis
  • Consumers eat producers or other consumers
  • Predators hunt, kill, and eat other animals (prey)
  • Decomposers like bacteria and fungi break down dead organisms in a process called decomposition or rotting
• Food chains and food webs:

  • A food chain is a sequence of feeding relationships between organisms, showing the movement of energy through trophic levels
  • Food webs are networks of food chains that show how they all link together
• In a food chain, the base is the producer (plants or algae) that photosynthesize to convert energy from the sun into glucose, forming biomass that feeds the rest of the chain