1. ECOLOGY continued… Food Chain – A chain including the organisms and their food source. Grass grasshopper bird

2. A food chain illustrates the transfer of energy from one trophic level to the next. Check out these terms!!

3. Food chains include terms like producer, consumer, and decomposer. If there is more than one level of consumers, each level of consumers will have another name: primary, secondary, or tertiary.

6. ECOLOGY continued… Food Web – Multiple chains assembled into one large web.

7. Food webs also could use the terms from the food chains. Additional terms can be used such as carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore.

8. Which organism represents a producer? Which organism represents a herbivore? Which organism represents a omnivore?

9. Which organism represents a secondary consumer? What would happen if the grasshoppers were removed from the ecosystem? Now the hard ones

10. ECOLOGY continued… Ecological Pyramid A model that shows the energy flow through an ecosystem.

11. The figures represent number of individuals counted at each trophic level. Ecological Pyramids of Numbers

12. What do you notice about this pyramid of numbers? Note: There's only one oak tree, but lots of caterpillars indicated by the shape of the pyramid

13. Pyramid of Numbers What am I? This pyramid represents the same data. It does NOT show the total number of organisms though.

14. Pyramid of Numbers What am I? This pyramid represents the same data. It does NOT show the total number of organisms though. This is a pyramid of BIOMASS!!

15. The total dry weight of organisms in a particular trophic level is referenced as biomass. Ecological Pyramids of Biomass BIOMASS = # of organisms x the weight of an average individual

16. Ecological Pyramids of Biomass Ecologists estimate that there are 2500 ants in the average ant pile. If each ant weights.2 grams, what is the biomass of the ants in the ant pile? Another ecologist determined that there are on average 5 hawks in every one acre in Southlake. The mass of a single hawk is about 650 grams. What is the biomass of the hawk in that acre?

17. Ecological Pyramids of Biomass

18. Ecological Pyramids of Energy Energy in ecosystems flows from producers to consumers. Energy is depicted in kilocalories. Primary producers convert only about 1% of the energy in available sunlight. The average amount of energy that is available to the next trophic level is about 10%.

19. Ecological Pyramids of Energy

20. 45,000 Kcal are available by the producers in a pond ecosystem. How many Kcal are available to the alligator, a quaternary consumer? Hypothetically speaking, 2,000,000 Kcal are available from the sun to be transformed by the plants. How many Kcal are actually transformed by the plants?