sci_bio
Ecosystems, Food Webs & Energy Flow
Chapter summary, hard words and model exam answers for ICSE Class 10 Hindi.
Free online summary and notes (ICSE Class 10 Hindi). Read it here, no PDF download needed.
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Biology · CBSE 10 · ICSE 10 · GCSE (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
Summary
An ecosystem is the living community (biotic) plus the non-living surroundings (abiotic) of an area, interacting as one. A pond, a forest and a single log can each be an ecosystem.
A food chain shows energy passing from producer to consumers in a line: grass to rabbit to fox. A food web is many chains joined, showing what really happens when one species feeds many others.
Only about 10% of the energy at one trophic level reaches the next. The rest is lost as heat in respiration, in movement, and in undigested waste. This is why chains are short and predators are few.
Bacteria and fungi break down dead bodies and waste, returning minerals to the soil for plants to reuse. Energy flows one way and is lost, but matter is recycled again and again.
Hard words & meanings
| biotic | the living parts of an ecosystem, such as plants, animals, fungi and bacteria |
| abiotic | the non-living physical conditions of an ecosystem, such as temperature, light and water |
| producer | an organism that makes its own food by photosynthesis, usually a green plant or alga |
| consumer | an organism that gets energy by eating other organisms |
| trophic level | a feeding level in a food chain, e.g. producer, primary consumer |
| decomposer | an organism, such as a bacterium or fungus, that breaks down dead matter and recycles nutrients |
| food web | a network of interconnected food chains showing all the feeding relationships in an ecosystem |
| interdependence | the way organisms in an ecosystem rely on one another for food, shelter, pollination and recycling |
Model exam answers, grammar & audio
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