6.3.1 Ecosystems

• Habitat - The place where an orgainism lives
• Population - All the organisms of one species in a habitat.
• Producer - An organism that produces organic molecules using sunlight energy.
• Consumer - An organism that eats other organisms
• Decomposer - An organism that beraks down dead or undigested organic material.
• Trophic level - A stage in a food chain occupied by a particular group of organisms
• An ecosystem is all the organisms living in a certain area and all the non-living conditions found there. It is a dynamic system.
• Dynamic System - Changing all the time.
• Biotic Factors - The living features of an ecosystem
• Abiotic Features - The non-living features of an ecosystem
• The main route by which energy enters an ecosystem is photosynthesis
• During photosynthesis plants convert sunlight energy into a form which can be used by other organisms - Plants are producers
• Plants store energy as biomass, which is the mass of living material.
• After the producers store sunlight energy as biomass, the energy transfers through ecosystems as biomass transfers.
• Energy is transferred through the living organisms of an ecosystem when the organisms eat other organisms.
• Food chains and food webs show how energy is transfered through an ecosystem.
• Food chains show simple lines of energy transfer.
• Food webs show lots of food chains in an ecosystem and how they overlap
• Energy locked up in the things that can't be eaten, like bones, gets recycled back into the ecosystem by decomposers