Organisms are the base level of ecosystems, and large groups of them make populations, large groups of which become communities. Each organism has a niche, or a special role that makes it unique in its community. Populations are kept from getting too large by limiting factors, like space and food availability. The carrying capacity of an ecosystem is the amount of organisms in a population that the area can sustain. Predator-prey food chains and food webs are the main ways that different species interact with each other within the ecosystem. A food chain usually starts with a producer, or an organism able to make its own food with either photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. This can also be referred to as an autotroph. Consumers, or heterotrophs, make the next level of the food chain. These can be either herbivorous, meaning they only consume producers, carnivorous, meaning they only consume other consumers, or omnivorous, meaning they eat both producers and consumers. Other types of consumers are decomposers, which recycle vital nutrients through their process of consuming dead and decaying matter, and scavengers, which eat prey that other predators have already killed. Food chains also show how bioaccumulation and biomagnification affect an ecosystem. Bioaccumulation is the buildup of …show more content…
There are many categories that a cell can be classified as. They can be either unicellular, being able to function and show all seven characteristics of life with just one cell, or multicellular, composed of multiple cells that interact with each other. They can also be either prokaryotic, without membrane-bound organelles, or eukaryotic, with membrane-bound organelles. Cells also have many parts that help them to carry out their processes. The cell wall provides structure and defense, while the cell membrane controls what comes in and out of the cell. Ribosomes create proteins, as instructed by the nucleus, which contains the genetic material and provides information for all actions carried out by the cell. Chloroplasts and mitochondria are responsible for photosynthesis and respiration, respectively. Centrioles are found in the cytoplasm, which holds all the cell’s organelles, and help to pull the cell’s nucleus apart during cell