Section 2: Flow of Energy in an Ecosystem

Autotrophs capture energy, making it available for all members of a

food web.
K W L
What I Know What I Want to Find Out What I Learned
Essential Questions
• What are the producers and consumers in an ecosystem?
• How does energy flow through an ecosystem?
• What are food chains, food webs, and ecological pyramid models?

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Vocabulary
Review New
• energy • autotroph
• heterotroph
• herbivore
• carnivore
• omnivore
• detritivore
• trophic level
• food chain
• food web
• biomass

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Energy in an Ecosystem
Organisms differ in the way how they obtain their
energy
Organisms are classified acc0rdin to energy obtaining
into:
Autotrophs
Heterotrophs.

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 Autotrophs

• An autotroph is an organism that collects energy from sunlight or inorganic

substances to make food.
• Autotrophs that contain chlorphyll absorb energy during photosynthesis
and change cabondioxide and water to glucose.
• Autotrophs that live in places where sunlight is unavailable, some bacteria
use hyrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide to make organic molecules to use
as food.

• Autotrophs are the foundation of all ecosystems because the make energy
available for all other organisms.
Energy in an Ecosystem
Heterotrophs
• A heterotroph, or consumer, is an organism that gets its energy by consuming other
organisms.
• An herbivore eats only plants
• A carnivore eats animals
• An omnivore eats both plants and animals: people,bears,mocking birds.
• A detritivore eats fragments of dead matter, and return nutrients to the soil, air,
and water ,where they can be used again.
• Example: worms and aquatic insects
• Decomposers: break down dead organisms by releasing digestive enzymes like
fungi.
• Without the prescenece of detritivores and decomposers , the organic material
would not break down, and nutrients would no longer be available to other
organisms.

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Models of Energy Flow
• Food chains and food webs model the energy flow through an ecosystem.
• Each step in a food chain or food web is called a trophic level.
• Organisms at each level get their energy from the trophic level below them.

• Important imformation:
• AUTOTROPHS make up the first trophic level in all ecosystems.
• Heterotrophs make the remaining levels.
• Autotrophs get their energy from the sun
• Heterotrophs get their energy from the level below.

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Models of Energy Flow
Food chains
• A food chain is a simple model that shows
how energy flows through an ecosystem.
• In a food chain , the arrows represent the one
way energy flow which starts from the
autotrophs to the heterotrophs.

• Each organism uses a portion of the energy ,

it obtains fro the organism it eats for celukar
process to build new cells and tissue.
• The remaining energyis releasd into the
surrounding environmet as heat and no
longer is available to them.

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Models of Energy Flow
Food webs
The model represents the
feeding relationships in an
ecosystem.
• A food web is a model representing
the many interconnected food chains
and pathways in which energy flows
through a group of organisms.
• Organisms might feed on different
available organisms on their
environmnet ( ex.coyote)

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 Desert Community Food Web
Go to your ConnectEd resources to play Animation: Food Web.

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Models of Energy Flow
Ecological pyramids
• An ecological pyramid is a diagram that shows the relative amounts of energy,
biomass, or numbers of organisms at each trophic level.

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 Pyramid of energy
• Note that only 10% of the energy move to the
next above level.
• What about the 90% of the energy gained by
the food?
• It is used by the organism’s body for cellular
process that maintain it’s living, and the rest is
released to the environment as heat.
 What happens to the biomass amount as
moveing up in a trophic levels?
• Biomass is the total mass of living matter at
each trophic level.

• The biomass decreases at each trophic level

because there is less energy available to
support organisms.
Review
Essential Questions
• What are the producers and consumers in an ecosystem?
• How does energy flow through an ecosystem?
• What are food chains, food webs, and ecological pyramid models?

Vocabulary

• autotroph • omnivore • food chain

• heterotroph • detritivore • food web
• herbivore • trophic level • biomass
• carnivore

Copyright © McGraw-Hill Education Flow of Energy in an Ecosystem