Energy Flow Through Ecosystems

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Energy Flow Through Ecosystems
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Ecosystem and Energy Roles

• Ecosystem all living non-living things that
  interact in an environment
• Energy Role in an Ecosystem
• Determined by
• How it obtains energy
• How it interacts with other living organisms in
  its ecosystem

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Some Energy Roles

• The sun provides energy
• Producers harness energy from the sun
• ex. plants
• Consumers organisms that eat something else
• ex. animals
• Decomposers return energy to the environment
• ex. fungus, bacteria

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Producers

• Plants harness energy from the sun through
  photosynthesis
• They are the base of every food chain
• Source of food for all other animals

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Consumers

• 4 Types
• Herbivore eats only plants
• Ex. Cows, horses
• Carnivore eats only meat
• Ex. Polar bear
• Onmivore eats plants and animals
• Ex. Humans, grizzly bears
• Scavenger carnivore that feeds on bodies of dead
  organisms
• Ex. Vultures

6
Decomposer

• Decomposers break down wastes and dead organisms
  and return the raw materials to the environment
• Ex. Bacteria, fungi

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Energy flow through biological systems
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Food Chains

• Food Chain series of events in which one
  organism eats another and obtains energy

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Food Chains Continued

• Arrows always points in the direction of energy
  flow
• 1st organism is always the producer
• 2nd organism is the consumer that eats the
  producer
• Primary consumer
• 3rd organism is the consumer that eats the 1st
  level consumer
• Secondary consumer
• And so on..

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Energy Pyramid

• 2nd Law of Thermodynamics energy is not
  transferred from one object/organism to the next
  with 100 efficiency
• Some of the energy is lost to the environment
• Energy Pyramid shows the amounts of energy that
  moves from one level to the next

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Sample Energy Pyramid
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Energy Transfer

• Only about 10 of energy is transferred from one
  level to the next
• The other 90 is used by the organism to carry
  out its life processes or it is lost to the
  environment