Plants (producers) are at the beginning of every food chain that involves the Sun. All energy comes from the Sun, and plants are the ones who make food with that energy through photosynthesis. Plants get their energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide, and water. Without water transporting nutrients to the plants, they would not grow and survive. Water also helps cool plants as they evaporate water through transpiration.

The term abiotic means something that is not living; it is devoid of life. Abiotic materials are still part of an ecosystem, but they are not living organisms. Of the answer choices, only one is a nonliving thing, a rock. The other options are all living organisms and are biological rather than physical.

Energy is transferred throughout the environment by consuming plants and animals, photosynthesis, and the breaking down of dead organisms. In this environment, a new consumer was introduced - the rabbit. They ate all of the producers (plants) in the area because they are herbivores. The plants could not keep up with their reproduction and were wiped out because of the large rabbit population and the number of plants needed to sustain them. The farmer would have to supplement the rabbits with other plant or plant by-products to keep his rabbit population growing.

The term abiotic means something that is not living; it is devoid of life. Abiotic materials are still part of an ecosystem, but they are not living organisms. Of the answer choices, only one is a nonliving thing, a rock. The other options are all living organisms and are biological rather than physical.

Plants (producers) are at the beginning of every food chain that involves the Sun. All energy comes from the Sun, and plants are the ones who make food with that energy through photosynthesis. Plants get their energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide, and water. Without water transporting nutrients to the plants, they would not grow and survive. Water also helps cool plants as they evaporate water through transpiration.

Energy is transferred throughout the environment by consuming plants and animals, photosynthesis, and the breaking down of dead organisms. In this environment, a new consumer was introduced - the rabbit. They ate all of the producers (plants) in the area because they are herbivores. The plants could not keep up with their reproduction and were wiped out because of the large rabbit population and the number of plants needed to sustain them. The farmer would have to supplement the rabbits with other plant or plant by-products to keep his rabbit population growing.

Organisms are dependent on each other for a source of energy. Producers rely on the Sun, consumers rely on producers and smaller prey earlier in the chain, and final consumers need weaker animals to feed on. Each organism has a role to play, and the others will not survive if one link in the chain goes missing. In the answer choices, both of the organisms must be living and consume or eat other organisms for energy. A rabbit eats producers like grass and fruit while a cat eats meat from birds, lizards, and mice. Both of these organisms are consumers.

The Department of Education and Training for Victoria State in Canada explains in scientific terms how energy is transferred through the food chain in an ecosystem, "Energy is transferred between organisms in food webs from producers to consumers. The energy is used by organisms to carry out complex tasks. The vast majority of energy that exists in food webs originates from the sun and is converted (transformed) into chemical energy by the process of photosynthesis in plants. A small proportion of this chemical energy is transformed directly into heat when compounds are broken down during respiration in plants. The majority of the chemical energy stored in plants is transformed into other forms by an assortment of consumers, such as cows, rabbits, horses, sheep, caterpillars, and other insects eating plants. Some of the stored chemical energy in a producer such as grass is stored as chemical energy in the fat or protein in the first-order consumers that eat the grass. This energy is available for higher-order consumers. At each stage of a food chain, most of the chemical energy is converted to other forms such as heat and does not remain within the ecosystem."

Energy is recycled in a food chain and flows between producers, consumers, and decomposers. There is no accumulation of energy; a final consumer does not end up with all the energy; it is recycled and transferred through prey/predator relationships.

Source: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/science/continuum/Pages/ecosystem.aspx#:~:text=Energy%20is%20transferred%20between%20organisms,process%20of%20photosynthesis%20in%20plants.

Plants are called producers because they produce their food. Through photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide with their leaves, water, and nutrients from the soil with their roots, and sunlight to create glucose. This energy-rich sugar gives plants what they need to grow and survive. Plants are the only organism that can use sunlight to make their food.

The answer choices are correct and list possible problems with introducing a disease into the rabbit population. With 600 million rabbits, it is possible that the decomposers cannot keep up with the number of dead rabbits. If there are too many rabbits dying and the decomposers can't keep up, it could lead to carcasses building up, which can introduce new disease, and it will look and smell bad. Decomposers break down the waste and dead organisms, and they could catch the same illness or become sickly because of eating the sick rabbits. Over time organisms build up immunities to disease, and the condition can mutate. Over time, the infection could spread to other animals or mutate, and new symptoms emerge with the rabbits.