What is the difference between a lake and a pond?
Which of the following does not occupy the bottom of an energy pyramid?
The amount of energy lost at the transition between each trophic level of the pyramid of energy is about _______.
Explain which three marine habitats would have the least access to phytoplankton, and why.
The deep ocean, the sea floor, and hydrothermal vents have the least access to phytoplankton. Phytoplankton need sunlight and are concentrated near the water’s surface, while these habitats are deep and receive little or no sunlight. Food may reach them from above, but phytoplankton generally do not grow there.
Explain which aquatic environments are more likely to have winter ice.
Freshwater environments such as ponds and lakes are more likely to have winter ice, especially when they are shallow or still and located in cold regions. Freshwater freezes at a higher temperature than saltwater, while ocean water is also kept mixed by currents and waves, making a lasting ice cover less likely.
The biomass pyramids for phytoplankton and trees in their respective environments are _______.
Summarize why the pyramid of energy can never be inverted like the pyramids of numbers and biomass can.
An energy pyramid can never be inverted because energy decreases at every trophic level. Organisms use much of the energy they take in for life processes, and much is lost as heat, so only a small fraction passes to the next level. Producers must therefore form the broad base, with less energy available at each level above them.
Explain why estuaries, salt marshes, and mangrove forests have more variation in salinity than other marine habitats like the ocean and sea floor.
Estuaries, salt marshes, and mangrove forests lie where land-based freshwater meets seawater. River flow and rainfall can dilute the salt, while tides bring in seawater and evaporation can concentrate it. Because these inputs and conditions change, salinity varies more than it does in the open ocean or on the seafloor.
Illustrate the factors that allow the aquatic pyramid of biomass to be inverted.
In aquatic ecosystems, phytoplankton reproduce rapidly and are eaten quickly, so their standing biomass at any given moment may be smaller than the biomass of the zooplankton and other consumers they support. Their fast turnover continually replaces the phytoplankton, allowing consumer biomass to exceed producer biomass and creating an inverted biomass pyramid.
The Pompeii worm was discovered near _______.
The biomass pyramids for phytoplankton and trees in their respective environments are _______.
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