Summary

Goals

  • Knowing that organisms of an ecosystem affect each other in multiple ways.
  • Understanding that changes in one part of the ecosystem affects all the other parts of the ecosystem.
  • Knowing why there are fewer predators than first degree consumers or producers.
  • Understanding the importance of decomposers for the ecosystem.

Summary

  • Organisms of a community have many kinds of relationships with each other. These relationships include predator-prey relationships, competition and symbiosis.
  • Producers produce energy to their communities through photosynthesis.
  • A food chain always begin at the producer.
  • Consumers eat producers or consumers of lower degrees than them.
  • Decomposers, such as bacteria or crayfish, recycle dead organisms and transform them into nutrients.
  • In a food pyramid, organisms are placed according to their position in the food chain. The pyramid grows narrower towards the top: there are fewer high-degree consumers than there are producers or lower-degree consumers.
  • Key words: relationship, food chain, producer, consumer, decomposer.