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