1. BELLWORK Lexa has the following symptoms of a cold: • Coughing
• Sneezing
• Headache
• Sore throat
Which describes how Lexa contracted this cold?
A. Lexa ate food with a fungus in it, which traveled to major organs in her body.
B. Lexa inhaled a virus, which traveled to respiratory tissue and interfered with normal breathing function.
C. Lexa walked barefoot in soil containing a parasitic worm. The worm imbedded itself in her skin and sent toxin throughout her body.
D. Lexa touched an object covered with a bacterium. The bacterium penetrated her skin and traveled to her lungs through her blood system.

2. Bellwork Write down the following questions:
Where does our primary source of energy come from?
What does the sun “power” with the plant?
What is one product of photosynthesis
What do herbivores eat?
What was an example the video gave of an omnivore?
What do scavengers eat?
What was an example the video gave of a carnivore?
What are bacteria and fungi also known as?

3. Vocabulary
Ecosystem – interactions between the biotic organisms and the abiotic materials and how materials and energy are transferred
Biotic – living or dead organisms; made up of cells
Examples – plants, animals
Abiotic – non-living materials
Examples – plastic, oxygen, water, rocks, light, heat
Producers – turn the sun’s light energy into chemical (food) energy.
They make their own food b y the process called PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Producers are only in the first trophic level
Examples – plants, algae, bacteria

4. Consumers – cannot make their own food (chemical energy)
Use chemical energy from other living organisms
Need to eat Producers or Consumers to get their food energy
Found on the second or higher trophic levels
Primary consumers – first consuming organism in a food chain
Second trophic level
Examples – herbivores or omnivores
Secondary consumers – second consuming organism in a food chain
Third trophic level
Examples – carnivores or omnivores
Tertiary consumers – third consuming organism in a food chain
Fourth trophic level

5. Trophic level – feeding level
Herbivore – only eat producers (such as plants)
Carnivores – eat consumers (herbivores or carnivores or omnivores)
Omnivores – eat producers or consumers
Food chain – starts with a producer and only connects with single links (arrows) to the consumers
Example – a typical food chain in a field ecosystem might be: grass  grasshopper  mouse  snake  hawk
Food web – multiple food chains that interconnect showing many feeding relationships

6. Scavengers – feed on the bodies of larger dead animals
Examples – vultures, eagles, ravens, hyenas, some ants, and beetles
Detrivores – feed on bodies of smaller dead animals and plants
Examples – crabs, earthworms, wood beetles, carpenter ants
Decomposer – feed on any remaining dead plant and animal matter
Examples – bacteria, fungi

7. Competition – demand for resources
Population – organisms that belong to the same species that live in the same ecosystem
Example – people: species in Halifax: ecosystem
Carrying capacity – largest population of a species that an ecosystem can support
Competition – demand for resources
Examples – food, water, mates, space
Population density – the number of organisms within a given space

8. Vocabulary Predators – an organism that hunts other organisms
Prey – an organism that is hunted by a predator
Niche – an animal’s role in its ecosystem
Habitat – a place where a population lives
Biome – ecosystems where several habitats intersect
Cellular respiration – the process of breaking down food
C6H12O6 + O2  ENERGY + H2O + CO2

9. OBTAINING ENERGY
Every organism needs to obtain energy in order to live
The sun is the Earth’s main source of energy
Plants get energy from the sun
Some animals eat plants
Some animals eat other animals

10. FOOD CHAINS AND WEBS
We organize the flow of energy in ecosystems using food chains and webs
A food chain is the sequence of who eats whom in a biological community (ecosystem) to obtain nutrition
A food web is a network of many food chains

11. FOOD CHAINS A food chain starts with the primary energy source
Usually the sun
The next link in the chain is an organism that makes its own food from the primary energy source
Photosynthetic plants that make their own food from sunlight
Also called autotrophs or primary producers
Next come organisms that eat the autotrophs
Called herbivores or primary consumers
A rabbit that eats grass

12. FOOD CHAINS CONTINUED
The next link in the chain is animals that eat herbivores
Called secondary consumers
Snakes that eat rabbits
Next are tertiary consumers
Owl that eats snakes
The last link in the chain are quaternary consumers
Hawk that eats owls
EACH FOOD CHAIN ENDS WITH A TOP PREDATOR, AN ANIMAL WITH NO NATURAL ENEMIES (LIKE AN ALLIGATOR, HAWK, OR POLAR BEAR)

13. The arrows in a food chain show the flow of energy from the sun to a top predator
As the energy flows from organism to organism, energy is lost at each step

14. EXAMPLE OF A FOOD CHAIN

15. EXAMPLE OF FOOD WEB

16. ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF A FOOD WEB

17. IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO KNOW
Some organisms’ position in the food chain can vary as their diet differs
For example – when a bear eats berries, the bear is functioning as a primary consumer. When a bear eats a plant-eating rodent, the bear is functioning as a secondary consumer. When a bear eats salmon, the bear is functioning as a tertiary consumer
This is because salmon is a secondary consumer since it eats herring that eat zooplankton that eat phytoplankton that make their own energy from the sun
THINK ABOUT HOW PEOPLE’S PLACE IN THE FOOD CHAIN VARIES – OFTEN WITHIN A SINGLE MEAL!

18. MORE IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO KNOW
In any food web, energy is lost each time one organism eats another
Because of this, there are many more plants than there are plant-eaters
There are more autotrophs than there are heterotrophs
More plant-eaters than meat eaters
Each level has about 10% less energy available to it because some of the energy is lost as heat at each level

19. MAINTAINING EQUILIBRIUM
As the number of carnivores in a community increases, they eat more and more of the herbivores
This decreases the herbivore population
It then becomes harder and harder for the carnivores to find herbivores to eat
This decreases the carnivores population
In this way, the carnivores and herbivores stay in a relatively stable equilibrium by limiting each other’s population
A similar equilibrium exist between plants and plant-eaters

21. 5 Levels of Ecological Organization
Organism – a living thing
Population - organisms that belong to the same species that live in the same ecosystem
Community – made up of living things within a specific geological area
Ecosystem - interactions between the biotic (living) organisms and the abiotic (non-living) materials and how materials and energy are transferred
Biosphere – all ecosystems of the Earth combined

22. Bellwork
Which statement describes the niche of an organism in an ecosystem? (Remember, a niche is an organism’s role in its ecosystem.)
A pelican is able to fly long distances without stopping
A snake feeds on small rodents in a forest
A moth is nocturnal and is attracted to light
A frog spends part of its life in water and part on land
TURN IN THIS WEEK’S BELLWORK AND WRITING PROMPT
STUDY FOR YOUR QUIZ