AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Last week we learned that a habitat is home to a tangle of food chains called food webs. The animals depend on each other for food, but they don’t just need each other, they rely on the non-living things in the habitat, too. This interaction of living and non-living things in a habitat is called an ecosystem.

Detailed explanation-2: -A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem. Each living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they move through the ecosystem.

Detailed explanation-3: -A food chain outlines who eats whom. A food web is all of the food chains in an ecosystem. Each organism in an ecosystem occupies a specific trophic level or position in the food chain or web. Producers, who make their own food using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, make up the bottom of the trophic pyramid.

Detailed explanation-4: -An ecosystem is made up of all the living animals and plants and the non-living matter in a particular place, like a forest or lake. All the living things in an ecosystem depend on all the other things-living and non-living for continued survival-for food supplies and other needs.