transferring energy

• intensive farming:

  • fed high protein diet
  • kept in sheds to control movement
  • less energy lost from movement, reduces energy requirement
  • control heat/temperature
  • won't get cold/less energy required to keep warm
  • grow quickly, make money quicker
  • creates jobs
  • not much land required
  • animal cruelty/disease could spread quickly
  • increase crop yield and competition
  • weeds, pests will increase plants will compete for light, soil etc
• Food chains:

  1. producer - plants, plankton, energy from sun by photosynthesis
  2. first stage/primary consumer - eating producers mainly herbivores
  3. second stage/secondary consumer - most carnivores eating primary consumers
  4. third stage/tertiary consumer - eating second stage consumers
  5. decomposers - feeding on dead and decaying organisms
  6. interdependence - two or more organisms relying on each other for survival
• food webs:

  
• energy is transferred along food chains however the amount available decreases from one trophic level to the next as only around 10% is passed along

  the rest of the energy passes out food chains in many ways:

  • released as heat during respiration
  • used for life processes such as growth and movement
  • egested in faeces
  • the entire organism is not often ate
  • less energy is released so the biomass gets smaller
  • effiency = energy transferred to next level x 100
  • total energy in
• biomass is the mass of living material in an animal or plant, the biomass at each stage of the food chain is less than it was at a previous stage

  • pyramid of numbers - shows the amount of organisms per unit area or volume at each feeding level
  • pyramid of biomass - shows the dry mass of organic material per unit area or volume at each feeding level