Introduction to Ecology

Energy in Ecosystems

1. What is the difference between a producer and a consumer?

2. Why do all ecosystems depend on producers?

3. How are consumers dependent on the Sun?

4. Could producers survive without consumers? Explain why or why not.

Food Chains and Food Webs

1. What is a food chain? What is a food web? What are the differences between a food chain and a food web?

2. What is a trophic level?

3. Define the 5 types of consumers, and give an example of each.

4. What are the trophic levels in a food chain?

5. What happens to energy as it flows through a food web?

6. How might the stability of an ecosystem be affected if all of the decomposers were suddenly removed from the ecosystem?

Pyramid Models

1. What is an energy pyramid? How does an energy pyramid help to describe energy flow in a food web?

2. What is biomass?

3. Describe the flow of energy from one trophic level to another.

4. What percent of the energy from one trophic level is passed to the next trophic level?

5. What is the difference between a biomass pyramid and a pyramid of numbers?