AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Consumers constitute the upper trophic levels. Unlike producers, they cannot make their own food. To get energy, they eat plants or other animals, while some eat both.

Detailed explanation-2: -Producers use energy and inorganic molecules to make food. Consumers take in food by eating producers or other living things. Decomposers break down dead organisms and other organic wastes and release inorganic molecules back to the environment.

Detailed explanation-3: -All nutritional energy comes from the Sun: plants use chlorophyll to photosynthesize the Sun’s energy into plant energy, and then animals either feed on plants for that energy or they feed on the animals that have eaten that plant energy. The food chain begins with the Sun and then the energy flows to producers.

Detailed explanation-4: -Primary consumers that feed on many kinds of plants are called generalists. Secondary consumers are carnivores that prey on herbivorous animals. Omnivores, which feed on both plants and animals, can be considered as being both primary and secondary consumers.

Detailed explanation-5: -Energy is transferred between organisms in food webs from producers to consumers. The energy is used by organisms to carry out complex tasks. The vast majority of energy that exists in food webs originates from the sun and is converted (transformed) into chemical energy by the process of photosynthesis in plants.