Trophic breathing

Biotic and Abiotic factors:

Ecosystem: all the living and nonliving parts of an environment.

Biotic factors: the living parts of an ecosystem.

Abiotic factors: the nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

Living things need non-living things to survive. Without food, water, and air, living things die. Sunlight (because provides energy that plants, and certain bacteria absorb to make their own food) shelter, and soil are also important for living things

Trees are biotic elements which need water that is an abiotic element. Without water the tree wouldn’t make oxygen, but without trees the water wouldn’t complete the water cycle.

Changes in abiotic factors can result in extreme problems for some organisms. For example, if a plant is adapted to low temperatures and the specific are where it lives, has a change in its temperature(thanks to global warming), this plant will die and this area will no longer support life, which is due to the change in abiotic factor (temperature).  

Energy Flows: 

All energy originates from the sun. The solar energy captured during 

photosynthesis becomes chemical energy. Chemical energy can become electrical energy needed for heat, mechanical energy stored in fats or free energy, which is given off back to the environment. Plants are organisms that feed themselves through photosynthesis. Animals get their food by eating others. Trophic levels are the trophic level of an organism is the number of steps it is from the start of the chain. On average, only about 10% of the available energy is passed on from one trophic level to the next.

The trophic levels: A food web starts at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, can move to herbivores at level 2, carnivores at level 3 or higher, and typically finish with apex predators at level 4 or 5.

Energy decreases as it moves up trophic levels because energy is lost as metabolic heat when the organisms from one trophic level are consumed by organisms from the next level.

The level with the least amount is the secondary consumer. The population decreases significantly at each level. Also realize that the number of times that an organism of a higher trophic level ingests food increases as you move up the food chain, therefore, there must be more food available from the lower levels so that the required energy is available.