Note that your final mark will not be saved in the system.
Biomass and food production Typeit
Type the correct answers into the spaces. Fill all the spaces before clicking ‘Check Answers!’
Many organisms, called consumers, feed on others to get their energy. These relationships between what eats what can be shown linearly in a , and the energy level at which an organism feeds is called a . These levels begin with a large number of , which do not eat other organisms but instead obtain their food by photosynthesis using energy from the Sun. When the masses of the living organisms at each level are stacked on top of each other, this is called a . It is called this because energy transfer is inefficient between levels and so is lost with each level. This means that each level can support organisms than the level before it. Additionally, some organisms that are often not shown do not eat other organisms directly, but secrete enzymes into the environment to digest the dead remains of organisms. These are called .
As the human population continues to increase, food security comes into question for many countries. This can be worsened by the effects of global warming which may lead to a shortage of food for a region, known as a . Humans have come up with many ways to improve food security, including the use of farming. This is an example of industrial agriculture which aims to maximise yields via methods such as restricting the movement of livestock and controlling the of the animals' surroundings to ensure that most of their energy is used for growth. Many people, however, believe this is cruel to the livestock and have moral objections to its use. An increasing demand for protein has also led to of the oceans' fish populations, which threatens the survival of many species. In order to curb the damage done, limits called have been placed on the number of fish that can be caught, and the size of nets is now tightly controlled.
Genetic modification, a technique used to move from one organism to another, can now also be employed to improve food security, as well as offering solutions to many other problems faced by humans. For example, is a genetically modified plant which contains elevated levels of vitamin D, and genetically modified bacteria which produce can now be used to treat people with diabetes.