STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF ECOSYSTEM

 Introduction to Ecology and Ecosystem

 Classification of Ecosystem

 Attributes of Ecosystem

 Structure of Ecosystem

 Function of Ecosystem

INTRODUCTION
We had earlier defined ecology and ecosystem. To enhance our understanding
of ecology and ecosystem, we shall have a small review of these terms.

Ecology comes from the greek words oikos (house or place where one lives) and logos(study of).
It can be surmised as the Study of the “House” in which We Live. This term was introduced by
Ernst Haeckl in 1869. Ecology can be defined more specifically as the study of the interactions
between organisms and the nonliving components of their environment. ecology involves
collecting information about organisms and their environment, looking for patterns, and seeking
to explain these patterns.

The Biosphere is composed of smaller units called ecosystems. An ecosystem includes all the
organisms and the nonliving environment that are found in a particular place. Ecosystems can be
as large or as small as we decide. Any area you decide to Study can be considered an Ecosystem.
For example you may choose to study your back yard, a multi storeyed apartment, a mountain
range or a forest/zoo. Any of these would be considered an Ecosystem. In an ecosystem, there
are various levels of organisation.

The simplest level of organization in Ecosystem is that of the organism. An organism refers to a
particular organism in an ecosystem, say cat, dog etc. A population includes all the members of
the same organism that live in one place at one time. All the different populations that live in a
particular area make up a community. The physical location of a Community is called the
habitat. Ecosystem is in turn a level of organisation and has one higher level of organisation
called biosphere. The photograph on the next page derived from a foreign ecology book would
clearly illustrate the various levels of organisation.
There are further classifications in the above chart, but for a beginner level, it is enough to
concentrate on these areas. Also the study of artificial ecosystem is not the scope of an
environmental scientist. The environmentalists deal with natural creations and management only.
Moreover the system in artificial ecosystem does not offer much to study. Therefore we are more
interested in natural ecosystem and don’t consider artificial ecosystem
APPROACH TO ECOSYSTEM

With an ecosystem comprising of large number of speices, it would seem and is impractical to
study the interaction of each organism with another, It is impossible to approach an ecosystem by
studying the individual organism – environment relationship. Therefore we study an ecosystem
following an wholesome approach.

We study the ecosystems by studying the two aspects (attributes) of an ecosystem. They are

(1) Structure or Architectural Process

(2) Function or Working Process

STRUCTURE OF AN ECOSYSTEM
By Architecture or Structure of an Ecosystem, we mean
 the composition of biological community including species, numbers,
biomass, life history and distribution in space, etc.
 the quantity and distribution of non living materials like nutrients, water etc.
 the conditions of existence such as temperature, light etc.
An ecosystem possesses both living components and biotic factors and nonliving
or abiotic factors.

The nonliving factors, called abiotic factors, are physical and chemical characteristics of the
environment. They include solar energy (amount of sun light), oxygen, CO2, water, temperature,
humidity, ph, and availability of nitrogen.

The living components of the environment are called Biotic Factors. They include all the Living
Things that affect an organism. Biotic Components are often categorized as Producers,
Consumers, and Decomposer.

The structure of an ecosystem can be represented as below

FUNCTION OF AN ECOSYSTEM
 The function of an ecosystem is a broad, vast and often confused topic. The function of
an ecosystem can be best studied by understanding the history of ecological studies. The function
of an ecosystem can be studied under the three heads.

1. Trophic Level Interaction

Trophic Level Interaction deals with how the members of an ecosystem are connected
based on nutritional needs. Ecological Succession deals with the changes in features/members of
an ecosystem over a period of time. Biogeochemistry is focussed upon the cycling of essential
materials in an ecosystem.

As we would be discussing about ecological succession and bio geo chemistry in the
future chapters, we shall confine to Trophic level interaction alone in this chapter. For
examination purposes, the student may also stop with explaining the constituents of trophic level
interaction.

Trophic Level Interaction was developed by zoologist Charles Elton. It deals with who
eats who and is eaten by whom in an ecosystem. The study of trophic level interaction in an
ecosystem gives us an idea about the energy flow through the ecosystem.

The trophic level interaction involves three concepts namely

1. Food Chain

2. Food Web

3. Ecological Pyramids

FOOD CHAIN

In an ecosystem one can observe the transfer or flow of energy from one trophic level to other in
succession. A trophic level can be defined as the number of links by which it is separated from
the producer, or as the wh position of the organism in the food chain. The patterns of eating and
being eaten forms a linear chain called food chain which can always be traced back to the
producers. Thus, primary producers trap radiant energy of sun and transfer that to chemical or
potential energy of organic compounds such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
When a herbivore animal eats a plant (or when bacteria decompose it) and these organic
compounds are oxidized, the energy liberated is just equal to the amount of energy used in
synthesizing the substances (first law of thermodynamics), but some of the energy is heat and not
useful energy (second law of thermodynamics). If this animal, in rum, is eaten by another one,
along with transfer of energy from a herbivore to carnivore a further decrease in useful energy
occurs as the second animal (carnivore) oxidizes the organic substances of the first (herbivore or
omnivore) to liberate energy to synthesize its own cellular constituents. Such transfer of energy
from organism to organism sustains the ecosystem and when energy is transferred from
individual to individual in a particular community, as in a pond or a lake or a river, we come
across the food chains. The number of steps in a food chain are always restricted to four or five,
since the energy available decreases with each step. Many direct or indirect methods arc
employed to study food chain relationships in nature. They include gut content analysis, use of
radioactive isotopes, precipitin test, etc

In nature, basically two types of food chains arc recognized—grazing food

green plants, goes to grazing herbivores and on to the carnivores. Ecosystems with such type of
food chain are directly dependent on an influx of solar radiation. Thus, this type of food chain
depends on autotrophic energy capture and the movement of this energy to herbivores. Most of
the ecosystems in nature follow this type of food chain. These chains are very significant from
energy standpoint. The phytoplanktons -> zooplanktons -» fish sequence or the grasses -> rabbit
-> fox sequence arc the examples of grazing food chain. Further the producer -> herbivore ->
carnivore chain is a predator chain. Parasitic chains also exist wherein smaller organisms
consume larger ones without outright killing as the case of the predators.

2. Detritus food chain. The organic wastes, exudates and dead matter derived

from the grazing food chain are generally termed detritus. The energy contained in this detritus
in not lost to the ecosystem as a whole; rather it serves as the source of energy for a group of
organisms (dctritivorcs that are separate from the grazing food chain, and generally termed as the
detritus food chain (Fig. 9.5). Tl\e detritus food chain represents an exceedingly important
component in the energy (low of an ecosystem. Indeed in some ecosystems, considerably more
en-ergy flows through the detritus food chain than through the grazing food chain. In the detritus
food chain the energy flow remains as a continuous passage rather than as a stepwise flow
between discrete entities. The organisms of the detritus food chain are many and include algae,
bacteria, slime molds, actinomycetes, fungi. Protozoa, insects mites. Crustacea, centipedes,
molluscs, rotifers, annelid worms, nematodes and some vertebrates. Some species are highly
specific in their food requirements and some can eat almost anything. detritus itself.

Significance of food chain : The food chain studies/help under stand the

feeding relationships and the interaction between organisms in anv ecosystem. They also help us
to appreciate the energy flow mecha- nism and matter circulation in eco- system, and understand
the movement of toxic substances in the eco-system and the problem of biological magnification

FOOD WEB
In nature simple ood chains occur rarely The same organism may operate in the ecosystem at
more than one trophic level i.e it may derive its food from more than one source. Even the same
organism may be eaten by several organisms of a higher trophic level or an organism may feed
upon several different organisms of a lower trophic level. usually the kind of food changes with
the age of the organism and the food availability. Thus in a given ecosystem various food chains
are linked together and interested each other to form a complex network called food Web.
Generally food webs are not too complex. As more and more species are involved in a web the
connectance falls. Expect in insect communities, omnivores are scare and when they occur they
usually feed on species in adjacent trophic levels. Within habitats, food webs arc rarely broken
up into discrete compartments. The number of species of predators in a food web typi-cally
exceeds the number of species of prey by an aver-age of 1.3 predator species per prey species.

ECOLOGICAL PYRAMIDS
 In the successive steps of grazing food chain-photosynthetic autotrophs, herbivorous
heterotrophs, carnivores heterotrophs, decay bactcria-the number and mass of the or-ganisms in
each step is lim-ited by the amount of en-ergy available. Since some energy is lost as heat, in
each transformation the steps become progressively smaller near the top. This relationship is
sometimes called ecological pyramid. The ecological pyramids represent the trophic structure
and also trophic function of the ecosystem. In many ecological pyramids, the producer form the
base and the successive trophic levels make up the apex.

The ecological pyramids may be of following three kinds:

different trophic levels of food chain. This pyramid was advanced by Charles Elton (1927), who
pointed out the great difference in the number of the organisms involved in each step of the food
chain. The animals at the lower end (base of pyramid) of the chain arc the most abundant.
Successive links of carnivores decrease rapidly in number until there are very few carnivores at
the top. The pyramid of number ignores the biomass of organisms and it also docs not indicate
the energy transferred or the use of energy by the groups in vol ved. The lake ecosystem provides
a typical example for pyramid of number.

2. Pyramid of biomass: The biomass of the members of the food chain

present at any one time forms the pyramid of the biomass. Pyramid of biomass indicates decrease
of biomass in each trophical level from base to apex. For example, the total biomass of the
producers ingested by herbivores is more than the total biomass of the herbivores in an
ecosystem. Likewise, the total biomass of the primary carnivores (or secondary consumer) will
be less man the herbivores and so on.

3. Pyramid of energy: When production is considered in terms of energy, the

pyramid indicates not only the amount of energy flow at each level, but more important, the
actual role the various organisms play in the transfer of energy. The base upon which the
pyramid of energy is constructed is the quantity of organisms produced per unit lime, or in other
words, the rate at which food material passes through the food chain. Some organisms may have
a small biomass, but the total energy they jssimilate and pass on, may be considerably greater
than that of organisms with a much larger biomass. Energy pyramids are