1. Communities Community: All of the living things in an area that depend upon each other. Example: Pond Community. Habitat: The place where a plant or animal lives. Example: Squirrel lives in several different trees in the forest, skunk lives in a single hollow log. Niche: An organisms role in the community. Example: Most green plants convert sunlight into energy and release oxygen. Other animals are dependent on the plants for survival. VERY important.

2. Community  All populations in a habitat 1. Interactions between climate & topography give it its temp. rainfall, soil types etc. 2. Available food 3. Individuals have adaptive traits to survive 4. interaction of species by competition, predation, mutually helpful activities 5. Arrival & disappearance of species

3. Jobs in a Community PRODUCERS: Organisms that make food in a community. Examples: Anything that uses photosynthesis to make food; trees, bushes, algae…

4. Jobs in a Community Primary Consumer: Animals that eat only plants (herbivore). Examples; Rabbit, Deer, Bird… Secondary Consumer: Animals that eat other animals (Carnivore or Omnivore) Examples: Owl, Human, Bear…

5. Jobs in the Community Decomposers: Living things that get their food from breaking down dead matter. Examples: Bacteria, Fungi… Importance: Without decomposers, the world would be covered in dead material, they are the RECYCLERS!

6. TROPHIC LEVELS AND FOOD CHAINS Level 1: Producer Level 2: Primary Consumers (herbivores) Level 3: Secondary Consumer (carnivores sometimes omnivores) Level 4… Level 5… (TOP) Carnivores Food Chain - simple diagram showing the flow of energy. See pages 670-671

8. The figure below shows a simple food chain for land production. 1) How much solar energy does a vegetarian utilize when eating 1,000 calories of plant material? Use the information from the figure to calculate this. 2) How much solar energy (in calories) does a meat eating person utilize when eating 1000 calories of meat? Use the diagram above to make your determination. The numbers below each figure are the number of calories stored at each trophic level.

9. Food Web= The path that energy moves along from one trophic level to the next and back again in a complex fashion.

10. Biomass= Total weight of all ecosystem organisms. Productivity of Ecosystems Pg. 673

11. Types of Pyramids: See page 674