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Energy Flow in Ecosystems
Pages 740-745
Every Organism Plays a Role Within
An Ecosystem
• Roles
– Producer
– Consumer
– Decomposer
Producers
• Energy first enters an
ecosystem as sunlight
• Plants, algae and some
autotrophic microbes
use the sunlight and
stores it as food energy.
Water + carbon dioxide = glucose + oxygen
• Producers (autotrophs)
are the source of food
for other organisms in
the ecosystem
Consumers
• Organism that gets its
energy by feeding on
other organisms.
– Herbivores – eat only
plants
– Carnivores – eat only
meat
– Omnivores – eats both
plants and animals
– Scavengers – carnivore
that feeds on the bodies
of dead organisms.
Decomposers
• Organisms that break down
wastes and dead organisms
and return the raw materials
back to the ecosystem.
• Without decomposers
wastes in the ecosystem
would pile up and
overwhelm living things.
• Includes fungus, worms,
and some bacteria
The movement of energy through an
ecosystem can be shown in diagrams.
• Food Chains – series of events where one
organism eats another and obtains energy.
Note:
•Primary Consumers:
eat producers
•Secondary consumers:
eat primary consumers
•Tertiary consumers:
eat secondary consumers
Food Webs
• A way to show
many
overlapping food
chains in an
ecosystem
Energy Pyramids
• Shows the amount of energy that moves
from one feeding level to another in a food
web
• The most energy is available at the producer level.
There is less energy at each higher level than the
level below it.
• Organisms at each level use some of the energy to
carry out their life processes.