Home >> Flashcards >> Biology >> Chapter 1.2
Shared Flashcard Set
Cards
Term
|
Definition
| An organism that makes organic food molecules from CO2, H2O, and other inorganic raw materials. ex. Plants, alga, or autotrophic prokaryote. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An organism that obtains its food by eating plants or by eating animals that gave eaten plants. |
|
|
Term
| What do decomposers do for their environment? |
|
Definition
| Decomposers act as recyclers, changing complex matter into simpler mineral nutrient that plants can use. |
|
|
Term
| Name and explaint the two major process in the dynamics of an ecosystem. |
|
Definition
Recycling of chemical nutrients and the flow of energy.
The most basic chemicals necessary for life - carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, and various minerals - flow from the air and soil to plants, to animals and decomposers, and back to the air and soil.
Energy flows into the ecosystem when photosynthesizers absorb light energy from the sun and convert it to the chemical energy of sugars and other complex molecules. Chemical energy is then passed through a series of consumers and, eventually decomposer, powering each organism in turn. In the process of these energy conversions between and within organisms, some energy is converted to heat. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
