EQ: What is an ecosystem?
Vocabulary Words
Environment
Ecosystem
Population
Community
Ecosystems
All living things around you make up the environment. An
environment includes living things and nonliving things.
Living things include people, animals, and plants. Nonliving things include soil and weather.
Ecosystems
All the things that interact in an environment make up
an ecosystem. An ecosystem has two parts- living and
nonliving things. An ecosystem can be small or large, wet
or dry, cold or hot.
Individuals and Populations
One deer is an individual. A group of deer is called a
population. A population is a group of the same kind of
plant or animal living in the same ecosystem.
Individuals and Populations
Individual
Population
Communities
Amazon Rain Forest
Blue Ridge Mountains
Plants, animals, and people live together. They live in a
community. A community is all the populations that live
in the same place. Look at these different communities.
Review Questions
• What is an ecosystem? Give an example.
• What are the 2 parts of an ecosystem? Give
and example.
• What is the difference between individual
and populations? Give an example.
• What is a community?
EQ: What are the roles of producers,
consumers, and decomposers?
Vocabulary
Words
–producer
–omnivore
–consumer
–herbivore
–carnivore
–decomposer
Producers
Any living thing that makes its own food is called a
producer. Plants are producers. Producers can be small,
like moss, or large, like an oak tree.
Consumers
An animal that eats plants or other animals is called a
consumer. Consumers cannot make their own food.
Consumers must eat other living things.
Kinds of Consumers
There are 3 kinds of consumers, herbivores,
carnivores, and omnivores.
Decomposers
A decomposer eats dead plants or animals. Decomposers
also break down waste. Earthworms are decomposers.
They eat dead plants. Fungi are decomposers too. They
break down wood from dead trees.
Review Questions
•
•
•
•
•
What are producers?
What are consumers?
Describe the 3 kinds of consumers.
Give an example of each kind of consumer.
What are decomposer and how do they help
the Earth?
EQ: How does energy flow through an
ecosystem?
Vocabulary Words
– habitat
– niche
– food chain
– prey
– predator
– food web
– energy pyramid
Habitats
A habitat is an environment that meets the needs of a
living thing. An insect’s habitat can be small as the space
under a rock. A migrating bird’s habitat can cross a
continent.
Types of Habitats
Niche
Each living thing in a habitat, has a role, or niche. A niche
is how a living thing works within an ecosystem.
A niche includes these things:
• where a plant or animal lives
• how it reproduces
• where the animal gets its food
• how an animal stays alive
What is the niche of the
lion in the picture?
Food Chains
A food chain shows the path of food energy. Most food
chains start with producers, or plants that get energy
from the sun.
Prey and Predators
Consumers that are eaten are called prey. Consumers
that eat prey are called predators.
Can you locate the prey and the predators in the picture?
Food Webs
A food chain shows how an animal get energy. When food
chains cross, they make food webs. Food webs can be on
land and in the ocean.
Food Webs
Top Level Consumers
Eats 2nd level consumer but when top
level consumers die, decomposers help
break down their remains
2nd Level Consumers
Eats a first level consumer
1st Level Consumers
at the bottom of food web.
They each producer
Energy Pyramid
An energy pyramid shows how much energy is passed on
from one thing to another. Producers are at the bottom
of the energy pyramid.
Energy Pyramid
Review Questions
• What is a habitat? Give an example.
• What things are included in a niche?
• Describe the difference between a food chain
and a food web.
• Give examples of a prey and predator. How
are they different?
• What does an energy pyramid show? Give an
example?
EQ: What factors influence
ecosystem?
Vocabulary
Words
– abiotic
– biotic
Living Things Affect Ecosystem
Plants and animals are the living parts of an ecosystem.
Living parts of an ecosystem are biotic, which means they
are living.
Living Things Affect Ecosystem
2. Birds and deer spread
seeds. This causes the
plants to grow in new
places.
Plants and animals affect the
ecosystem in many ways.
HOW?
1.Plants are food for animals,
so if a plant dies, there is
less food for the animals.
Non - Living Things Affect
Ecosystem
Soil
Sunlight
Water
Ecosystems have no living parts also. Sunlight, air, water, and
soil are nonliving. These nonliving parts of an ecosystem are
called abiotic.
Climate Affect Ecosystem
Climate also affect an ecosystem. It affects the soil, the plants
that grow in an ecosystem, and the animals that live in an
ecosystem.
How do you think the climate has affected these ecosystems?
Think about the soil, animals, and plants that may thrive there.
Review Questions
• Describe the difference between abiotic and
biotic. Give examples.
• How does climate affect an ecosystem?
• How does living and non living things affect
and ecosystem?