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Unit 1.6 - Ecosystems and human impact on the environment (food chain…
Unit 1.6 - Ecosystems and human impact on the environment
Producer - Makes the food - plants
Consumer - eats the food
herbivore - animals that consume plants
carnivore - meat eating animals - lions
omnivore - plants and meat
predator - hunt and eat other animals
prey - animal that gets eaten
scavenger - eats dead carcus
decomposer - dung beetle - eats dead animals and breaks down flesh - important
Nutrient cycle - movement and exchange of organic and non organic matter back to the production of the matter
Ecosystem - relationship between living and non living e.g: animal and habitat
food chain - e.g: seed - insect - lizard - snake - larger snake - bird
way of tracking the flow of energy
trophic level - the stages in a food chain
pyramid of numbers/biomass - biomass (number of organisms in the food chain)
food web - showing interconnecting food chains
food chain example
corn - producer - apex consumer
grasshopper - consumer - herbivore
rat - carnivore
wolf - carnivore
eagle - predator - carnivore - apex
Pyramid of biomass
A Pyramid of numbers shows the number of organisms per unit area or volume at each feeding level
A pyramid of biomass shows the dry mass of organic material per unit area or volume at each feeding level
Energy efficiency
Energy at later stage DIVIDED BY energy at earlier stage TIMES BY 100
Intensive farming
Pros
More efficient - less energy used by the animals/wasted
Food is controlled so that it contains all the nutrients animals need and less is wasted
In the case of chickens, eggs can be more easily harvested if the chickens are kept indoors
Cons
Diseases can spread more easily under crowded conditions - antibiotics may increase antibiotic resistance in bacteria
Animals in crowded conditions may be more stressed and more likely to fight
Some people think it's unethical as animals are not in natural conditions
Eutrophication
1) Fertilisers rich in nitrate and phosphate get washed into water
2) Algae mass increases (feeds on fertilisers) and blocks out light for plants at bottom
3) water plants die because of lack of photosynthesis
4) water plants become decaying material, depletes oxygen, dead plants are broken down by bacteria composers
5) oxygen levels reach a point where no life is possible
Pollutants in our environment - something which has been added to the environment which damages it in some way
air pollution - gases from factories / the home
litter - laziness, yoghurt pots, fly tipping
landfill - non recyclable household waste
sewage - human and animal
chemicals- detergents, pesticides, fertilisers
Bioaccumulation - toxins get into food chains - Minamata disease - affects brains ability to talk to body
Biomagnification - When toxins become more concentrated when you go up in the food chain - poisoned bugs - lizards/rodents, eagles - DDT - bug killer - affects the shell of eagle eggs and their reproductive system
Microscopic plants absored mercury in water
Microscopic animals ate large amounts of microscopic plants and mercury built up inside them
The fish ate very large quantities of the microscopic plants and the mercury built up to higher levels
Fish became poisonous because of the level of mercury, humans eat the fish, mercury levels make them ill or kill them