🌿 Ecosystems Quiz

🌍 An ecosystem includes both living things (plants, animals, insects, bacteria) AND nonliving things (rocks, sunlight, water, air) — all working together! Change one part and the whole ecosystem is affected.

🪨 A rock is nonliving because it was never alive — it does not grow, breathe, eat, or reproduce. Butterflies, mushrooms, and worms are all living things. Nonliving parts of ecosystems include rocks, water, sunlight, and air.

🌸 Bees carry pollen! Pollen is a tiny powder made by flowers. When a bee visits a flower for nectar, pollen sticks to its fuzzy body. When the bee visits the next flower, pollen rubs off — and that flower can now make seeds. This is called pollination!

☀️ All energy in a food chain comes from the sun! Plants capture sunlight and turn it into food through photosynthesis. Animals eat the plants and get that stored energy. Every food chain on Earth starts with the sun.

🌱 A producer makes its own food from sunlight! Plants are producers — they use sunlight, water, and air to produce their own energy through photosynthesis. Consumers eat other living things. Decomposers break down dead things. Producers are the foundation of every food chain.

🦊 The fox is the predator! A predator is an animal that hunts and eats other animals. The rabbit is the prey — the animal being hunted. Predators and prey keep each other's populations in balance. Without predators, prey populations can explode and eat all the vegetation in an ecosystem.

🪱 Decomposers break down dead plants and animals and return nutrients to the soil! Earthworms, fungi (mushrooms), and bacteria are all decomposers. Without them, nutrients would stay locked inside dead things and plants could not grow. They are the ecosystem's cleanup crew!

🏡 Every animal habitat must provide food, water, shelter, and space! Without food, the animal starves. Without water, it dehydrates. Without shelter, it is exposed to predators and harsh weather. Without enough space, it cannot find food or raise young. All four needs must be met.

🦋 A butterfly is a pollinator! Butterflies visit flowers for nectar and carry pollen on their bodies from flower to flower. Other pollinators include bees, hummingbirds, moths, and bats. Earthworms are decomposers. Foxes and hawks are predators. Without pollinators, we would lose most of our fruits and vegetables.

⛓️ If grasshoppers disappeared, frogs would lose their food source and their population would shrink. With fewer frogs, hawks would also lose food and their population would shrink too. Meanwhile, grass would grow unchecked with no grasshoppers eating it. This is called a "trophic cascade" — every link in the food chain matters!