Name: ________________________________
Date: _________________________________
Topic:
Questions/Main Ideas:
Notes:
Chapter 3: Ecosystems
Lesson 1: What are the parts of
ecosystems
What is a system?
-
has parts that work together for a purpose
What is an ecosystem?
-
all living and nonliving things in an environment and the many ways
they interact
may be large, like a desert, or small, like a rotting cactus
-
help animals live in certain climates
-
desert
-
grassland
-
tundra
-
forest
-
tropical rain forest
What is a population?
-
all the members of one species that live within an area of an
ecosystem
What is a community?
-
different populations that interact with each other in the same area
-
all organisms in an ecosystem form a community
What is a habitat?
-
the area where an organism lives in an ecosystem (its “address”)
What is a niche?
-
the specific role an organism has in its habitat (its job)
-
includes type of food organism eats, how it gets its food, and which
other species use the organism as food
each population in a habitat has a different niche
What are adaptations?
What are some types of
ecosystems?
LESSON 2: How does energy
flow in ecosystems?
What are herbivores?
-
consumers that get energy by eating only plants
What are carnivores?
-
consumers that only eat animals
What are omnivores?
-
consumers that eat both animals and plants
What are scavengers?
-
feed on dead plants and animals
What helps animals in their
niche?
-
animals have adaptations to help them in their niche (claws and
teeth for catching prey, four- part stomach to help digest food)
What is the order of a food chain?
-
Sun
producer (plant)
consumer (herbivore or omnivore)
predator (carnivore or omnivore)
insects)
What is a food web?
decomposer (bacteria, fungi,
-
a system of overlapping food chains
-
flows of energy branches in many directions
What form of matter do
organisms need to survive?
What are some parts of water
ecosystems?
-
minerals, oxygen, and carbon dioxide
-
In the Okefenokee Swamp:
single- celled algae are producers (plant-like protists, not plants)
freshwater snail is a consumer
How do matter and energy flow
through an ecosystem?
-
Plants use minerals from soil and gases from air.
Herbivores get matter and energy from plants they eat.
Carnivores get matter and energy from animals they eat.
What are some types of water
ecosystems?
-
Okenfenokee Swamp is a freshwater ecosystem
Everglades National Park has both freshwater and salt water
ecosystems
Coral reefs are salt water ecosystems
The deep sea is a salt water ecosystem
LESSON 3: How does matter
flow in an ecosystem?
-
DRAW FOOD WEB ON PAGE 92 AND 93
How does decay work?
What types of things affect the
rate of decay?
-
Scavengers feed on remains of dead organisms
Decomposers, such as fungi and bacteria, break down dead
organisms
The process returns minerals and nutrients to the ecosystem
-
Temperature (warmer temperature means faster decay)
Amount of moisture (more moisture means faster decay)
Amount of oxygen (more oxygen means faster decay)
Things that were alive once decay faster than things that never lived
Summary: