How energy flows through ecosystems

Energy is vital to all living things

Most of them comes directly or indirectly from the sun

To use the sun's energy living things first capture that energy and store it in some usable form

Because energy is continuously used by living things, it must be continuously replaced in ecosystem

In the process

Captured by

Move through by

Producers

Consumers

Decomposers

Make energy available to all the other living parts of an ecosystem

They produce food for themselves and for the rest of the ecosystem

An organism that captures energy and stores it in food

Classified by their position in a feeding relationship

Easily understand how energy transferred from a producer to a consumer

Organisms can not produce their food must get food from other sources

Get energy by eating consuming other organisms

Secondary consumers

Tertiary consumers

Primary consumers

Scavengers

A group of organisms that often go unseen

Organisms that break down dead plant and animal matter into simpler compounds

Organisms that Release the last bit of energy from once living matter

Return matter to soil or water where it may be used again and again

The energy within an ecosystem gets used up as it flows from organism to organism

Numerous ways to depict the flow of energy in an ecosystem

Food chain

Food web

Energy pyramid

Describe the feeding relationship between a produce and a single chain of consumers

Feeding relationship between many different consumers and producers

Shows the amount of energy available at each feeding level of ecosystem

Most energy enters ecosystems through photosynthesis

important to the maintenance of an ecosystem