Identify roles in an ecosystem
See this course’s project requirements
A food-web and carbon-cycle model explaining a fictional ecosystem disturbance, with a supported prediction and an alternative explanation.
Keep your working files in your own notebook or software. Save a private description, checklist, and work link in My Proof.
What to include
- Classify organism roles and nonliving conditions.
- Draw all supplied food-to-eater and decomposer links.
- Separate carbon cycling from energy flow and calculate the supplied fraction.
- Classify interactions from both partners’ stated effects.
- Trace a disturbance with an alternative food path.
- Write a bounded explanation of the supplied counts and complete changed cases.
Review and revise
Use these criteria to check your work and choose what to improve.
- Method: applies the course-specific rules to the supplied cases with visible intermediate work.
- Accuracy: results agree with the stated facts, units, boundaries and independent checks.
- Reasoning: explains why the result follows and identifies a limitation or unresolved question.
- Transfer: completes changed cases and revises the final project when a relevant assumption changes.
Want more background?
The idea in everyday life
Fictional Meadow M: grass captures sunlight; grasshoppers eat grass; rabbits eat grass; frogs eat grasshoppers; hawks eat frogs and rabbits; soil fungi break down dead organisms. Rainfall, soil and sunlight are also part of the setting.
Producers use light or chemical energy to build organic material; consumers obtain food from other organisms; decomposers break down dead material and return matter to other parts of the ecosystem. These roles describe supplied feeding processes, not whether an organism is good or bad. An ecosystem also includes nonliving conditions.
Identify roles in an ecosystem — worked practice
Producers use light or chemical energy to build organic material; consumers obtain food from other organisms; decomposers break down dead material and return matter to other parts of the ecosystem. These roles describe supplied feeding processes, not whether an organism is good or bad. An ecosystem also includes nonliving conditions.
Fictional Meadow M: grass captures sunlight; grasshoppers eat grass; rabbits eat grass; frogs eat grasshoppers; hawks eat frogs and rabbits; soil fungi break down dead organisms. Rainfall, soil and sunlight are also part of the setting.
1. 1. Classify
Assign a feeding role to each listed organism.
You should see: Grass is producer; grasshoppers, rabbits, frogs and hawks are consumers; listed fungi are decomposers.
2. 2. Distinguish
Separate organisms from nonliving conditions.
You should see: Rainfall, soil conditions and sunlight are abiotic influences.
3. 3. Connect
Explain why decomposers belong in the model.
You should see: They obtain energy from dead material and return matter to the environment.
4. 4. Bound
State why feeding role does not fully describe a species.
You should see: Other interactions and environmental requirements remain outside the role label.
What to finish
An ecosystem inventory with roles and nonliving conditions.
Watch for this
Decomposers use dead material and release matter into environmental stores. Their role does not create energy from nothing.
How can I tell I understand it?
Classify a changed organism by its process rather than its appearance.
Quick knowledge check
Answer all 3 questions. Get at least 2 right and the lesson completes automatically.
You’ll get an explanation for each answer. Signed in? Your results save to your account.
Pass the check. We’ll save the progress.
Answer all 3 questions above and get at least 2 right. You can review the explanations and try again.
Go to the knowledge checkTools, templates, and lesson sources
Tools and templates
Tools open in a new tab so you can keep your place here.
Sources and further reading
Explore the references behind this lesson.
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01
Web open/search showed the official page, its topic heading and relevant concept description. This is a content/source check, not a provider endorsement.
Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01; interactive tools and videos were not certified by retrieval.
Reuse: Original fictional teaching cases, calculations, questions and examples; link and short factual paraphrase only. No copied source exercises or illustrations.
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01
Web open/search showed the official page, its topic heading and relevant concept description. This is a content/source check, not a provider endorsement.
Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01; interactive tools and videos were not certified by retrieval.
Reuse: Original fictional teaching cases, calculations, questions and examples; link and short factual paraphrase only. No copied source exercises or illustrations.
Report a problem with this lesson
Tell us what went wrong. Please leave out personal information and private project contents.