Energy Flow In Ecosystems - Biology Worksheet With Answers (Page 15 of 15) in pdf

Energy Flow In Ecosystems - Biology Worksheet With Answers Page 15

24. Food chains describe the eating relationships and energy flow between species within an ecosystem. The

arrows in a food chain represent the direction of energy flow and point from the organism that is being

consumed toward the organism that is receiving energy.

Based on the food chain shown in the picture, energy in this ecosystem flows from the mouse to the snake.

25. The chemical elements that make up the molecules of living things (e.g., carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,

oxygen) pass through food webs and are combined and recombined in different ways. At each link in an

ecosystem, some energy (approximately 10%) is stored in newly made structures, although most of the

energy (approximately 90%) is dissipated into the environment as heat.

26. Organisms that absorb sunlight and use the energy to manufacture carbohydrates, such as glucose, are

producers.

27. Primary producers (plants) typically occur at the beginning of all food chains. The next organisms are the

primary consumers, or livings things that consume plants. A caterpillar is an example of a primary consumer.

A scorpion is a secondary consumer, which feeds on other consumers. Mushrooms are decomposers; these

organisms feed on dead plant and animal material throughout the food chain.

28. Energy first flows into a food web through primary producers. Moving up each of the trophic levels, the

available energy reduces by around ten percent each time. Thus, the amount of energy available to consumers

or decomposers is much less than that of the producers.

29. Consumers can be found in all levels of an energy pyramid except the first (bottom) level, which is made

up only of producers.

Consumers can be primary, secondary, or tertiary. Primary consumers use producers as their main food

source. Secondary consumers eat primary consumers. Tertiary consumers are at the top of the food chain.

They feed on secondary consumers.

30. According to the diagram of the Antarctic food web, krill are the only organisms that eat both the energy

producers (phytoplankton) and an organism that also eats the phytoplankton (other herbivorous zooplankton).

This makes krill both primary consumers and secondary consumers.

Energy Flow In Ecosystems - Biology Worksheet With Answers Page 15