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Ecosystems and Energy Sources - Google Slides

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Хүслэн Нацагдорж
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19 views15 pages

Ecosystems and Energy Sources - Google Slides

Uploaded by

Хүслэн Нацагдорж
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Ecosystems and Energy Sources

All green plants, and some bacteria, are photoautotrophic – they use sunlight
as a source of energy
■ This makes light the initial source of energy for almost all communities
■ In a few ecosystems the producers are chemoautotrophic bacteria, which use
energy derived from chemical processes

Light energy is absorbed by photoautotrophs and is converted into chemical


energy via photosynthesis
■ This light energy is used to make organic compounds (e.g. sugars) from
inorganic sources (e.g. CO2)
■ Heterotrophs ingest these organic compounds in order to derive their
chemical energy (ATP)
■ When organic compounds are broken down via cell respiration, ATP is
produced to fuel metabolic processes
Trophic Levels
The position an organism occupies within a feeding sequence is known as a trophic level
■ Producers always occupy the first trophic level in a feeding sequence
■ Primary consumers feed on producers and hence occupy the second trophic level
■ Further consumers (e.g. secondary, tertiary, etc.) may occupy subsequent trophic levels
Food Chains
A food chain shows the linear feeding relationships between species in a
community
■ Arrows represent the transfer of energy and matter as one organism is eaten
by another (arrows point in direction of energy flow)
■ The first organism in a food chain is always a producer, followed by
consumers (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.)
Energy stored in organic molecules (e.g. sugars and lipids) can be released by
cell respiration to produce ATP
■ This ATP is then used to fuel metabolic reactions required for growth and
homeostasis
■ A by-product of these chemical reactions is heat (thermal energy), which is
released from the organism

Not all energy stored in organic molecules is transferred via heterotrophic


feeding – some of the chemical energy is lost by:
■ Being excreted as part of the organism’s faeces
■ Remaining unconsumed as the uneaten portions of the food
The chemical energy produced by an organism can be converted into a
number of forms, including:
■ Kinetic energy (e.g. during muscular contractions)
■ Electrical energy (e.g. during the transmission of nerve impulses)
■ Light energy (e.g. producing bioluminescence)

All of these reactions are exothermic and release thermal energy (heat) as a
by-product
■ Living organisms cannot turn this heat into other forms of usable energy
■ This heat energy is released from the organism and is lost from the
ecosystem (unlike nutrients, which are recycled)
■ Hence ecosystems require a continuous influx of energy from an external
source (such as the sun)
When energy transformations take place in living organisms the process is never 100% efficient
■ Most of the energy is lost to the organism – either used in respiration, released as heat, excreted in
faeces or unconsumed
■ Typically energy transformations are ~10% efficient, with about 90% of available energy lost between
trophic levels
■ The amount of energy transferred depends on how efficiently organisms can capture and use energy
(usually between 5 – 20%)

As energy is lost between trophic levels, higher trophic levels store less energy as carbon compounds
and so have less biomass
■ Biomass is the total mass of a group of organisms – consisting of the carbon compounds contained
in the cells and tissues
■ Because carbon compounds store energy, scientists can measure the amount of energy added to
organisms as biomass
■ Biomass diminishes along food chains with the loss of carbon dioxide, water and waste products (e.g.
urea) to the environment
Because energy and biomass is lost between each level of a food chain, the number of potential trophic
levels are limited
■ Higher trophic levels receive less energy / biomass from feeding and so need to eat larger quantities to obtain
sufficient amounts
■ Because higher trophic levels need to eat more, they expend more energy (and biomass) hunting for food
■ If the energy required to hunt food exceeds the energy available from the food eaten, the trophic level
becomes unviable
A pyramid of energy is a graphical representation of the amount of energy at each trophic level of a
food chain
■ They are expressed in units of energy per area per time (e.g. kJ m–2 year–1)

Pyramids of energy will never appear inverted as some of the energy stored in one source is always
lost upon transfer
■ Each level should be roughly one tenth of the size of the preceding level (as energy transformations
are ~10% efficient)
■ The bottom level will always represent the producers, with subsequent levels representing consumers
(primary, secondary, etc.)

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