Study Guide for Chapter 3

 

• A system, such as the desert ecosystem or the Everglades, is made of many parts that work together for a purpose.

 

• This system is made up of living and nonliving things.  Living and nonliving things interact with each other in different ways.

 

• Different climates produce different ecosystems.

 

• Tundra, grassland, forest, desert and rainforest are different types of ecosystems.

 

• When one part of an ecosystem cannot function the whole ecosystem is affected.  The size of a population in an ecosystem may change depending on the amount of food, water or space that is available.  For example, the population may decrease if the amount of food decreases.

 

• An organisms’ habitat is where it lives.  

 

• The role an organism has in its habitat is called its niche.  A niche includes the type of food the organism eats, and how it gets its food.  

 

• For example, the habitat of a desert Roadrunner is the desert.  Its niche is the job it does; which is chasing food like lizards, and trying to escape being food of other animals like coyotes. 

 

• Sunlight is the main energy source for life on Earth.

 

• Plants change sunlight into energy in the process called photosynthesis.

 

• Since plants make their own food they are called  producers.

 

• Know the definition of herbivore, carnivore and omnivore.

 

• Decomposers, like insects, digest the waste and remains of dead plants and animals.

 

• The energy from sunlight, in plants, or producers, can be transferred along the food chain. The flow of energy is in one direction.  It is transferred as one organism eats another. Consumers cannot make their own food.  They need to eat to get energy.

 

• Nutrients and minerals also travel through a food chain.

 

• The system of overlapping food chains is called a food web. A food web can be changed if any part of it changes.  For example if a large number of animals were killed by a disease, the food web would change.

 

• A food web is a system of many food chains where the flow of energy branches in many directions. A food chain only goes in one direction, and shows how organisms transfer energy.

 

• In a swamp ecosystem plants use minerals from the soil and gases in the air.  Herbivores get the matter and energy they need from the plants they eat.  Carnivores get matter and energy from the animals they eat. 

 

• In the swamp food chain algae (producer) are at the bottom.  They are eaten by a freshwater snail or zooplankton (consumers).  The freshwater snail uses matter from the algae to grow.  The sand hill crane and the great blue heron get some of the matter they need by eating the snails. 

 

·          Decaying plants make up a large part of a swamp.  Decomposers, such as, fungi and bacteria, break down the dead organisms and return minerals and nutrients back to the ecosystem.