The document summarizes key concepts about Earth's four main interacting systems - the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere. It describes the components and interactions of ecosystems, including abiotic and biotic factors. Food chains and webs are explained as a transfer of energy from producers to consumers, with about 10% efficiency between trophic levels. Diagrams illustrate how food chains differ from interconnected food webs.

1. Name: ______________________________
PASS OBJECTIVE 5. Earth/ Space Science Notes
Objective 1: Earth has four main systems that interact: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the biosphere, and
the geosphere.
Composition of the Earth
Earth has four main systems that interact
Earth’s
systems
Atmosphere Hydrosphere Biosphere Geosphere
air water Rocks/land
__________
1. The Biosphere includes
• _______ on Earth
• Sea life, plants, flying creatures, humans
• Encompasses hydrosphere, upper geosphere, and lower ___________________.
2. The relationship between an organism and its environment is the study of _________________.
• Biotic Factors—____________ components in the biosphere
o Biotic, meaning of or related to life, are living factors. Plants, ____________, fungi, protist
and bacteria are all biotic or living factors.
• ____________ Factors—nonliving components in the biosphere
o Environmental factors such habitat (pond, lake, ocean, desert, mountain) or ___________such
as temperature, cloud cover, rain, snow, hurricanes, etc. are abiotic factors.
o Water is the universal solvent and the basis of all ____________on our Planet. The
hydrosphere is important to the Biosphere!
o The Sun provides the light and heat necessary to maintain life on Earth and is the ultimate
source of _________________.
• Biotic and abiotic factors combine to create a system or more precisely, an _________________
3. An ecosystem is a community of living and nonliving things.
o Pond Ecosystem
o Abiotic Factors _____________________________________________
o Biotic Factors ______________________________________________
o Ocean Ecosystem
o Abiotic Factors _____________________________________________
o Biotic Factors ______________________________________________
o Grassland Ecosystem
o Abiotic Factors _____________________________________________
o Biotic Factors ______________________________________________
• How do humans alter ecosystems without noticing? __________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Biosphere Notes pg.1

2. 4. Food _______________
• Shows how each living thing gets its __________.
• Some animals eat plants and some animals eat other animals.
• For example, a simple food chain links the trees, the giraffes and the lions. Each link in this chain is
food for the next link. A food chain always starts with plant life and ends with an ______________.
• An à is added and means “______________________”; also shows the flow of ______________
(the giraffe gets his energy from the leaves)
• Now we have made a simple food chain.
• Plants are called ________________ or autotrophs because they are able to use light energy to make
their own food.
• Animals cannot make their own _____________ so they must eat plants and/or other animals. They
are called consumers or heterotrophs. There are three groups of consumers.
1. _____________________ are animals that only eat plants or plant products (seeds). They are also
called primary consumers
• Carnivores are animals that eat other animals. There are 2 kinds of carnivores
2. _____________________ Consumers are carnivores that eat herbivores
3. _____________________ consumers are carnivores that eat other carnivores
MAKE YOUR OWN FOODCHAIN
Producer/ Herbivore/ Carnivore (eats herb) Carnivore (eats carn)
Autotroph Primary Consumer Secondary Consumer Tertiary Consumer
Makes own food
 Animals and people who eat BOTH animals and plants are called ______________________
 Then there are _________________ (bacteria, worms, and fungi) which feed on decaying matter.
 These decomposers speed up the decaying process that releases mineral salts back into the food chain
for absorption by plants as nutrients.
Biosphere Notes pg.2

3.  Why are there more plants than herbivores?
________________________________________
________________________________________ The food
________________________________________ chain
________________________________________ is a cycle
 Energy and mass is transferred from one level of
the food chain to the next with an efficiency of
about __________%.
 Most food chains have no more than four or five links
 There cannot be too many links in a single food chain because the animals at the end of the chain
would not get enough food (and hence energy) to stay alive.
 Most animals are part of more than one food chain and eat more than one kind of food in order to
meet their food and energy requirements. These interconnected food chains form a food web.
 Note that the arrows are drawn from food source to food consumers .
 Substitute the arrows with the words "eaten by"
 The arrows also show the way energy is moving.
FOOD CHAIN FOOD WEB
HOW ARE FOOD CHAINS AND WEBS DIFFERENT?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
Biosphere Notes pg.3

4. Recap
 The sun is the source of energy
 Water is the source of life on earth
 Water is in the hydrosphere, geosphere and atmosphere, and biosphere.
 The living things in the biosphere are dependent on many nonliving things. (abiotic and biotic)
 There are food chains and webs that show what animals eat. The higher up on the food chain, the less
predators they have.
 Who receives the most of the sun’s energy and how energy moves and is converted through the food
chain.
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
 How are the systems connected (atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere)
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Create Your Own Food Web in the Space Below.
1. Start with a simple Food Chain: Think about what you eat, what it eats, and even what
that eats. May be easier to start with the plants and work up.
2. To make a Food Web: add more things that you eat, and things that it eats. See if any
arrows go to the same consumer.
3. Remember an arrow means “is eaten by” and flows the same way energy does.
Biosphere Notes pg.4