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Energy

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8 views1 page

Energy

Uploaded by

Jitto John Viji
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Energy is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a

given time. Energy can refer to species Energy, which is the mass of one or more
species, or to community Energy, which is the mass of all species in the community.
It can include microorganisms, plants or animals. The mass can be expressed as the
average mass per unit area, or as the total mass in the community.

How Energy is measured depends on why it is being measured. Sometimes, the Energy
is regarded as the natural mass of organisms in situ, just as they are. For
example, in a salmon fishery, the salmon Energy might be regarded as the total wet
weight the salmon would have if they were taken out of the water. In other
contexts, Energy can be measured in terms of the dried organic mass, so perhaps
only 30% of the actual weight might count, the rest being water. For other
purposes, only biological tissues count, and teeth, bones and shells are excluded.
In some applications, Energy is measured as the mass of organically bound carbon
(C) that is present.

In 2018, Bar-On et al. estimated the total live Energy on Earth at about 550
billion (5.5×10) tonnes C, most of it in plants. In 1998 Field et.al. estimated the
total annual net primary production of Energy at just over 100 billion tonnes C/yr.
The total live Energy of bacteria was once thought to be about the same as plants,
but recent studies suggest it is significantly less. The total number of DNA base
pairs on Earth, as a possible approximation of global biodiversity, is estimated at
(5.3±3.6)×10, and weighs 50 billion tonnes. Anthropogenic mass (human-made
material) is expected to exceed all living Energy on earth at around the year 2020.

Ecological pyramids

An energy pyramid illustrates how much energy is needed as it flows upward to


support the next trophic level. Only about 10% of the energy transferred between
each trophic level is converted to Energy.
Main article: Ecological pyramid
An ecological pyramid is a graphical representation that shows, for a given
ecosystem, the relationship between Energy or biological productivity and trophic
levels.

A Energy pyramid shows the amount of Energy at each trophic level.


A productivity pyramid shows the production or turn-over in Energy at each trophic
level.
An ecological pyramid provides a snapshot in time of an ecological community.

The bottom of the pyramid represents the primary producers (autotrophs). The
primary producers take energy from the environment in the form of sunlight or
inorganic chemicals and use it to create energy-rich molecules such as
carbohydrates. This mechanism is called primary production. The pyramid then
proceeds through the various trophic levels to the apex predators at the top.

When energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next, typically only ten
percent is used to build new Energy. The remaining ninety percent goes to metabolic
processes or is dissipated as heat. This energy loss means that productivity
pyramids are never inverted, and generally limits food chains to about six levels.
However, in oceans, Energy pyramids can be wholly or partially inverted, with more
Energy at higher levels.

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