Thursday, May 12, 2011
4.6 - Energy and substances in food chains
- Bushgrass eaten by impala - Bushgrass is the producer, Impala is the primary consumer, leopard is the secondary consumer, lion is the tertiary
- producer turns light energy into chemical energy - takes the form of organic molecules including carbohydrates, proteins and lipids --> what we call food
- These molecules are composed of C-H bonds, C-O bonds, C-C bonds, O-H bonds and C-N bonds - ALL represent energy
- C H O N are the substances/matter - contain the energy from the sunlight
- Impala consumes this for growth and respiration and life processes - then the leopard consumes the impala passing on the same molecules, reorganizes them into leopard form and then to the lion who reorganizes them as well
- What is passing is the 'matter' and energy (in the bonds)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
one of the key concpets in Ecology is that:
ReplyDeletea) Energy arrives at earth, drives the cycles of matter and then is lost as heat.
b) The matter cycles on in endless forms of living things and sometimes trapped in sinks' such as Coal, Oil or rocks