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1ST Read all of the articles and watch all of the Videos with "Basic" in the title.

2ND Read the articles and watch the videos with "Dig Deeper" in the title for deeper meaning and understanding

3RD Prepare for your quiz by reviewing the Study Guide, information from this site, and your definitions and notes.

4TH Take Quiz.

*****BEST PRACTICES*****

Make Sure to Use the Science Vocabulary Sheet to write on a separate sheet of paper the definitions of the words on the list. YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW THESE WORDS FOR THE TASC!!!!!

Make Sure to Take notes in your notebook as you read the articles and watch the videos. You should use these notes and the definitions to help you study for the quiz and the TASC.

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Basic Overview of Food Chains and Food Webs

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Basic Overview of Food Chains and Food Webs

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Trophic Levels of Producers and Consumers

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Watch Video and Read for Deeper Knowledge

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What is a Primary Consumer?

If you are like a lot of people, you have probably bought a used car before. So, you may be thinking, 'What is there to learn about a primary consumer?' It's obviously the first person to buy something, like the person that I bought the used car from, right? That may be true in the regular world, but a primary consumer has a slightly different meaning in the scientific world. Scientists needed a way to identify and classify the passing of energy through food consumption among living organisms. In order to fully understand this concept, we need to remember that plants are also living organisms in addition to animals, fungi, and bacteria. Every living organism has a classification in the consumer rankings.

Let's go back to the first person buying a car for a minute. What has to happen before a person can buy the car? The car has to be made or produced, right? The same is true for living organisms. In order for any organism to consume food, the food must be produced. The production of food comes from the producers, which are the photosynthetic plants.

Photosynthetic plants go through the process of photosynthesis in order to make their own food from light, and therefore, energy. After completing photosynthesis, the plants contain energy that can be passed on to other living organisms when the plants are eaten. The living organisms that eat the producers are then considered to be the primary consumers, similarly to how the first person to buy a car is the primary consumer of that particular car.

The primary consumers now have energy, and other organisms that are called secondary consumers can eat them. Secondary consumers are those organisms whose main food source is primary consumers. This is similar to you as the second consumer of the car. Even the secondary consumers have energy to pass on and can then be consumed by the tertiary consumer. These consumers are those who feed mostly on secondary consumers.

As you may have guessed by this point, the tertiary consumer is just like the person that may buy the used car from you. Now that you know what a primary consumer is, let's look at some examples.

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primary consumers: definition & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Primary Consumers: Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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If you are like a lot of people, you have probably bought a used car before. So, you may be thinking, 'What is there to learn about a primary consumer?' It's obviously the first person to buy something, like the person that I bought the used car from, right?

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Watch Video and Read Article for Deeper Knowledge

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The Ecological Pyramid

Imagine that you are hungry and have decided to consume, or eat, a meal that includes steak, lobster, and vegetables. While you're eating this meal, you are probably not thinking about what the lobster or cow ate before they ended up on your plate. However, this is something that scientists have given much thought to.

Different organisms - both plant and animals - can be grouped together and organized by trophic levels, or hierarchical levels that visually give information about the food consumption of each of these groups. Trophic levels are stacked into a trophic, or ecological pyramid, a graphic representation of what groups of organisms survive by consuming other groups. The simplest way to explain these pyramids is with an example.

In this ecological pyramid, you can see that above the soil and its resident decomposers, which we'll not cover in this lesson, the base consists of primary producers, or organisms (primarily plants) that make food on their own. One step higher, we see the trophic level of primary consumers, or herbivorous organisms that consume the producers. Just above our group of herbivores is the focus for this lesson: secondary consumers. Secondary consumers are organisms, primarily animals, which eat primary consumers. Although we will not cover them in this lesson, there is yet another level topping off our pyramid; these are the tertiary consumers.

Secondary Consumers

Ecological pyramids are helpful in that they can illustrate for us who in the animal kingdom eats who. Producers, as the base, eat no one and subside off of the nutrients from the air and soil. Primary consumers are strictly herbivores, or animals that eat only vegetation - fruits, vegetables, and plants; they consume no meat.

Secondary consumers, however, have a menu of primary consumers to choose from for their diets, depending on their habitats. Although there are a few, rare carnivorous plants out there, for simplicity's sake, I'm going to generalize secondary consumers as primarily animals. Examples of secondary consumers fall into one of two categories: carnivores or omnivores.

Carnivores are animals that eat only the meat of other animals. Carnivores come in all shapes and sizes, such as:

Large predators, like wolves, crocodiles, and eagles

Smaller creatures, such as dragonfly larva and rats

Some fish, including piranhas and pufferfish

Omnivores are animals that eat the meat of other animals as well as vegetation; they are carnivores and herbivores both. Similarly, there are omnivorous animals of all types:

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secondary consumers: definition & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Secondary Consumers: Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Imagine that you are hungry and have decided to consume, or eat, a meal that includes steak, lobster, and vegetables. While you're eating this meal, you are probably not thinking about what the lobster or cow ate before they ended up on your plate. However, this is something that scientists have given much thought to.

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Dig Deeper: Energy Flow of Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers

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Dig Deeper: Energy Flow of Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers

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Read for Deeper Knowledge

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The Circle of Life

Imagine the circle of life that takes place on an African savanna. The grass grows and is eaten by an antelope. The antelope is caught and eaten by a cheetah. The cheetah dies, is eaten by bacteria, and nutrients are returned to the soil. These nutrients are used by the grass as it continues to grow on the savannah. Each organism has a purpose. Like this example, there is a simple pattern of energy flow through organisms in any ecosystem. What are other examples you can think of?

There are three main groups to consider when looking at the circle of life in an ecosystem. The groups are producers, consumers, and decomposers. These groups are based on how the organism obtains food. Producers, consumers, and decomposers all interrelate in food chains and food webs and are dependent on one another for survival.

Producers

Producers make their own food. They do not have to obtain energy from other organisms. They obtain their energy from the sun and make food with that energy through the process of photosynthesis. Producers may also be called autotrophs. Most producers are plants, but there are some small organisms that produce food through photosynthesis as well. Producers are at the beginning of any simple food chain. On the African savanna, examples of producers would be any of the plants that grow there.

Consumers

Consumers cannot make food. They must find food and eat it to obtain energy. Consumers may also be called heterotrophs. There are primary and secondary consumers. Primary consumers are the next link in a simple food chain. These are the plant eaters, or herbivores. They do not eat other animals. In addition to the antelope mentioned earlier, examples of primary consumers on the African savanna would be a wild boar or a giraffe.

Secondary consumers follow primary consumers in a simple food chain. Secondary consumers eat the primary consumers. Secondary consumers can be carnivores or omnivores. Carnivores eat only meat, while omnivores eat both meat and plants. In addition to the cheetah, secondary consumers on the African savanna can include a lion who kills and eats the giraffe, or a human who kills and eats the wild boar.

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consumers & decomposers in ecosystems - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Producers, Consumers & Decomposers in Ecosystems - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Imagine the circle of life that takes place on an African savanna. The grass grows and is eaten by an antelope. The antelope is caught and eaten by a cheetah. The cheetah dies, is eaten by bacteria, and nutrients are returned to the soil.

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Make sure to read all article and watch all videos ABOVE.

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Read for Deeper Knowledge

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Introduction

Life is everywhere - in the oceans, beneath the soil, and even inside your body. In 1875, geologist Eduard Suess was the first scientist to use the term biosphere to describe the part of the earth where life exists. Is the biosphere the same thing as a biome? And how do ecosystems fit into the picture? Let's start by looking at what the biosphere is not.

What the Biosphere Isn't

Because the earth is so big, there are almost limitless ways to study it. One of the simplest means by which science categorizes different aspects of the earth is by dividing it into 'spheres':

The lithosphere consists of the earth's crust and upper part of its mantle.

The atmosphere is what we call 'the air,' or the mixture of gases held around the earth by its gravitational pull.

The hydrosphere is the sum total of all of earth's water in any form, whether it's on the ground as liquid or ice, or in the clouds as water vapor.

All of these spheres interact with one another through many different means, such as the water cycle and biogeochemical cycles like the carbon and nitrogen cycles.

What the Biosphere Is

The biosphere is the fourth sphere, and consists of the places where life can be found. Since life exists in the air, on and in the earth, and on and in water, the biosphere overlaps, connects, and influences all of the other spheres - and they all affect the biosphere.

Considering the sheer number of organisms on earth, however, the biosphere is actually fairly small in size. Most of the biosphere's life is found between 500 meters below the surface of the ocean and six kilometers above the surface of the earth, although there are organisms, especially microorganisms, able to live at much higher and lower depths. The biosphere is quite old; its creation coincides with the appearance of the first bacteria, about 3.5 billion years ago. As life has changed and become more complex, so has the biosphere.

The Biosphere in the Hierarchy of Life

Where does the biosphere sit in the hierarchy of life? Since it encompasses all places where life exists, you might expect it to be near the top of the pyramid - and you'd be right:

Just beneath the biosphere on this pyramid are the biomes, or large communities of organisms defined by a particular climate. Below biomes in the hierarchy are ecosystems, which are usually defined as even narrower and more specialized populations of organisms that interact with non-living parts of the environment.

Importance of Biospheres

The study of the biosphere is the basis for ecology, the study of life and its interactions with the physical environment. For example, in the image here, red symbolizes high concentrations of algae and plant-like plankton in the oceans, while greens represent high numbers of land plants.

Since plants are primary producers , that is, they are found at the bottom of food webs, they are good indicators of where other forms of life can be found. Ecologists monitor these types of data to try and predict what will happen to our environment. The information they obtain can help us to prepare for events that affect humans, like drought or severe storms.

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biosphere: definition & explanation - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Biosphere: Definition & Explanation - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Life is everywhere - in the oceans, beneath the soil, and even inside your body. In 1875, geologist Eduard Suess was the first scientist to use the term biosphere to describe the part of the earth where life exists. Is the biosphere the same thing as a biome?

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Ecosystem Levels

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9(d) Organization of Life: Species, Populations, Communities, and Ecosystems

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In general, ecologists believe that a that has a high is more complex and stable than a community that has a low diversity. This theory is founded on the observation that the of communities of high diversity are more interconnected. Greater interconnectivity causes these systems to be moreresilient to disturbance .

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Watch Video

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Brain Pop Video and Test

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Tim and Moby talk ecosystems! Learn what communities, populations, and habitats really are, and about the importance of preserving our biomes.