AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The nutrients are taken up by plants through their roots. The nutrients pass to primary consumers when they eat the plants. The nutrients pass to higher level consumers when they eat lower level consumers. When living things die, the cycle repeats.

Detailed explanation-2: -When one organism eats another, the matter, or carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements, are transferred from one to the other. These elements move from the producers, to the consumers, and eventually to the decomposers, cycling the matter through the ecosystem.

Detailed explanation-3: -Dead producers and consumers and their waste products provide matter and energy to decomposers. Decomposers transform matter back into inorganic forms that can be recycled within the ecosystem. So, the energy that enters an ecosystem as sunlight eventually flows out of the ecosystem in the form of heat.

Detailed explanation-4: -Nutrients move through the ecosystem in biogeochemical cycles. A biogeochemical cycle is a circuit/pathway by which a chemical element moves through the biotic and the abiotic factors of an ecosystem. It is inclusive of the biotic factors, or living organisms, rocks, air, water, and chemicals.

Detailed explanation-5: -Decomposers play a critical role in the flow of energy through an ecosystem. They break apart dead organisms into simpler inorganic materials, making nutrients available to primary producers.