Types of Ecosystems

Study Food Chains & Trophic Levels using Online Video

With this section, you'll learn about food chains, food webs, and trophic levels and discover how energy flows through an ecosystem. Use these 3 online educational video titles to understand the basic principles of an ecosystem's trophic structures and function, including food chains and webs, trophic levels, and the fictional relationship's between them. Study the flow of energy through an ecosystem. Examine the material cycles and the principles influencing the movement of materials through an ecosystem.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the interactions that take place in an ecosystem, and explain how the flow of energy and materials in an ecosystem impacts the structure and function of that ecosystem.
• Trace the trophic structure of an ecosystem: the food chain, food web, and trophic level.
• Provide examples of ecosystems, and explain the roles of producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and decomposers in the feeding structure of an ecosystem.
• Explain how energy flows through an ecosystem and impacts an ecosystem's structur.
• Examine material cycles in an ecosystem and discuss the movement and the conversion and recycling of materials in an ecosystem through biological and physical processes.
• Follow the cyclic movement of carbon through an ecosystem; identify three pools of the carbon cycle; and discuss the transfer processes by which carbon moves between the pools.

• Biology > Biological Sciences > Ecosystems
• Introduction (Runtime: 12:41)
• Energy (Runtime: 14:26)
• Materials (Runtime: 15:04)