Energy and Substances in Food Chains

Important notes to know:

• Producer converts light energy into chemical energy this takes the form of organic molecules. 
• The organic molecules can be carbohydrates, proteins or lipids. 
• These molecules are carbon to hydrogen, carbon to oxygen, carbon to carbon, oxygen to hydrogen and carbon to nitrogen. 
• The carbon, oxygen hydrogen and nitrogen is matter/substance.
• The substances contain energy which was fixed from sunlight. This now in the form of chemical energy.

Food Webs

Important notes to know:

• The food web allows us to provide a better description of the ecosystem. 
• The food web describes feeding. 
• A advantage of using a food web is that it can show organisms feeding at different trophic levels.
• In a food web organisms can have multiple predators and prey. 
• This results in food chains being linked.

Food Chains

Important notes to know:

• A food chain links the producer to the primary consumer, to the secondary consumer and possibly on to the tertiary consumer. 
• You have one organism per trophic level.
• In a food chain you cannot have omnivores (organism that consumes both animals and plants). 
• Food chains show the flow of matter and the flow of energy. 

Trophic Levels

Important notes to know:

• Trophic means to feed. 
• Herbivore eats plants .
• Carnivore eats other animals.
• Plants are producers because they make their own food.
• A carnivore that consumes another carnivore is called the top carnivore.
• Decomposer breaks dead animals and plants into molecules called nitrates and phosphates  

Quadrates

Important notes to know: 

• Quadrant is a square than can be made out of wood, string metal or cardboard. 
• Quadrant is used to measure the population size of species in an ecosystem.
• Quadrants can be 0.5m by 0.5m up to 1m by 1m.
• You would count the number of organisms in the quadrant. you would do this several times until you would have an estimate of how many species of organisms are in the area.
• Quadrants is a method of sampling in different locations so that populations can be compared.

Ecosystems

Important Notes to know:

• A Ecosystem is  a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
• Habitat can be described using the following words: temperature, rainfall, humidity, slope and daylight. 
• A Habitat is non-biological.
• The community of organisms in an ecosystem is made of a population of different species.

Plant Fertilization

Important Notes to Know: 

• Germinated pollen descends down the pollen tube into the ovule.
• Pollen nucleus will fertilize the ovule which leads to the formation of a zygote.
• The zygote will grow into the embryonic plant.
• Outside the ovule the seed coat will start to grow.
• Cotyledons are the food storage for the seedlings. 
• The walls of the ovaries start to thicken. Sugar and proteins are stored in this thick wall.
• This forms the fruit which is developed from the wall of the ovary/carpel.

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