The interconnected feeding relationships within an ecosystem and the hierarchical levels of organisms within a food chain.
Biodiversity: The variety of life on Earth and its ecological importance.
Ecosystems: A community of living and non-living things interacting with each other in a specific environment.
Predation: The relationship where one organism feeds on another for nutrition.
Competition: The interaction between organisms competing for resources such as food, water, and shelter.
Energy Flow: How energy flows from the sun through the food chain and how it is transferred from one organism to another.
Trophic Levels: The levels in the food chain where different organisms occupy. There are four levels: producers, primary consumers (herbivores), secondary consumers (carnivores), and tertiary consumers (top predators).
Decomposition: The process of organic matter breaking down into simpler compounds, which release nutrients back to the soil.
Keystone Species: A species that plays a vital role in maintaining balance within an ecosystem.
Biogeochemical cycles: The cycles that describe how organic and inorganic matter moves through the environment.
Food chain: A linear sequence of organisms where each animal eats the one below it and is itself eaten by the one above.
Food web: A network of interconnected food chains that outlines the feeding relationships between different species in an ecosystem.
Carbon cycle: The process of carbon moving through the environment, including photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and decomposition.
Nitrogen cycle: The process of nitrogen moving from the atmosphere to living organisms and back to the atmosphere through nitrogen fixation, nitrification, denitrification, and decay.
Trophic cascades: A phenomenon in which altering the abundance of one species has a ripple effect on the rest of the ecosystem.
Biomagnification: The process of toxins accumulating in an organism's tissues as it eats other organisms that have the toxins.
Ecological succession: The process by which ecosystems change and develop over time.
Limiting factors: Any factor that restricts the growth or survival of a population.
Photosynthesis: The process by which plants convert sunlight to food using carbon dioxide and water.
Cellular respiration: The process by which organisms break down glucose and other organic compounds to release energy.
Invasive species: A species that is introduced to a new ecosystem, competes with native species, and often causes ecological harm.
Terrestrial food webs: Food webs that exist on land, encompassing a variety of organisms from tiny microbes to large predators such as wolves and grizzly bears.
Aquatic food webs: Food webs that exist in water, including both freshwater and marine ecosystems. These can include phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, and marine mammals.
Grazing food webs: Food webs where herbivores consume plants as their primary source of nutrients. These can include ecosystems such as grasslands and savannas.
Detrital food webs: Food webs where decomposers such as bacteria and fungi play a key role in breaking down organic matter and recycling nutrients. These can include ecosystems such as forests and wetlands.
Parasitic food webs: Food webs where parasites feed on the tissues or fluids of their hosts, from small insects to large mammals.
Omnivorous food webs: Food webs where organisms consume both plant and animal matter, including many species of primates and most humans.
Primary producers: Organisms that produce their own food through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, such as plants or algae.
Primary consumers: Organisms that eat primary producers, such as herbivorous animals.
Secondary consumers: Organisms that eat primary consumers, such as carnivorous animals.
Tertiary consumers: Organisms that eat secondary consumers, such as top predators like lions or sharks.
Detritivores/decomposers: Organisms that break down dead organic matter and recycle nutrients back into the ecosystem, such as bacteria and fungi.