Before I start, I just thought I would let you know how I am planning to structure these posts. When I revise in Biology and Chemistry I tend to do it slightly differently to how I do in Geography and History as I go through all the specification points, one by and one, and write notes on them. Therefore I am going to structure many of these posts in a similar way so hopefully they are in an order that makes sense - first up I am going through the Ecosystems and Sustainability module (the one we studied in the summer after our AS exams - I know, a rather long time ago!)...... sorry but the start of any module will mean lots of lovely definitions!
ECOSYSTEM = community of organisms and their environments, in which ecologists study energy flows and nutrient cycling through trophic levels
- An ecosystem is a self-contained system including living organisms and the non-living components interacting with each other. Changes are happening all the time with ecosystems and energy constantly flows through them, from one organism to another through trophic levels and between organisms and the environment. Therefore we class all ecosystems as DYNAMIC SYSTEMS.
BIOTIC FACTORS = living component of environment that affects species distribution and abundance
---> predators, consumers, parasites, competitors
ABIOTIC FACTORS = non-living component of environment that affects species distribution and abundance
---> temperature, light intensity, soil type, pH of water and soil
PRODUCER = green pants which absorb inorganic compounds and use them, with sunlight, during photosynthesis to make the organic compounds on which the other organisms in the ecosystem depend
CONSUMERS = primary or secondary that eat producers and primary consumers, respectively
DECOMPOSERS = organisms that breakdown the organic remains of other organisms
TROPHIC LEVELS = a group of organisms which all obtain their energy in basically the same way e.g primary producers, primary consumers, decomposers
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