Ecosystems

Reading: Freeman Chapter 54

An ecosystem is the unit composed of all the living things in a single
place at a given time, in addition to, the important non-living
components of the system.
Nonliving components include sunlight, rainfall, silica and clay
particles in the soil, the air, the water in the soil, etc.
Thus, an ecosystem encompasses all aspects of a biological
community, in addition to factors such as rates of CO
2
uptake,
rates of nitrogen fixation from the atmosphere, precipitation,
seasonal flooding and its effects on nutrients, etc.
Ecosystems vary in size. Like communities, small
ecosystems are stacked within larger ones, and the
boundaries are sometimes diffuse.
The biosphere the largest and most encompassing
ecosystem we know-it encompasses all the plants and
animals on Earth.
Energy and Biomass
Much of ecosystems ecology concerns itself with the flow of energy
and biomass.
Nutrient cycling and energy flow are common to all biological
communities.
These phenomena are both a consequence, and a function of
biological communities.
The complex matrix of interactions among members of a
community expends energy, as well as passing it from one
member to the next through trophic interactions.
Likewise, biomass is constantly recycled through production,
predation, herbivory, and decomposition.
Energy
The sun is the ultimate energy source for almost every ecosystem on
earth.
Hydothermal vent communities are a partial exception-(they
rely on geothermal energy, but still depend upon oxygen fixed
by photosynthetic organisms).
Energy enters ecosystems via photosynthesis (or, in a few exotic
excosystems, chemosynthesis).
Organisms that bring energy into an ecosystem are called
producers.
Producers include green plants, algae, cyanobacteria, etc..anything
that can make its own energy from nonliving components of the
environment.
Organisms continuously use energy.
All metabolic processes consume energy in
some way, and in each reaction, much of it
is effectively wasted
..this is one reason why rapid metabolism makes
us homeothermic-the waste heat from metabolic
processes, mostly as molecular motion, warms
our bodies.
Ultimately, all biological energy radiates into the
environment as infrared light (a by-product of
respiration).
Much energy is lost every time it passes from
one trophic level to the next.
Energy does not recycle.
it must be continually replenished from the
sun.



Autotrophs fix their own energy from inorganic
sources.
Autotrophs are the producers in an ecosystem.
Heterotrophs depend upon energy and carbon fixed
by some other organism
they are consumers, detritivores, or decomposers.
(A mixotroph is gets its energy from inorganic sources, but
relies of organic sources of carbon.)
A food web is a schematic diagram that
describes the patterns of energy flow in an
ecosystem
Every instance of predation, herbivory, and parasitism
is a trophic interaction that moves energy from one
organism to another.
Decomposition is also a trophic interaction that uses
up the energy left over in dead bodies of organisms.
A food chain is one path through a food web,
from bottom to top.
Because energy is lost at each step, food chains have a limited
number of links.
Matter
Unlike energy, matter recycles through ecosystems.
Atoms of every biologically important element
constantly recycle through ecosystems, into the abiotic
component of the biosphere, and back into living
systems.
Elements are passed from one organism to another via trophic
interactions, or are taken directly from the environment.
Via the process of decomposition, each element ultimately
becomes nonliving, and has the potential to re-enter the
biosphere again.
Thus, each element has its own biogeochemical cycle-these can
take days, years, or eons, depending upon the element and the
circumstances.

Biomass
Biomass can be defined as the weight of living matter
(usually measured in dry weight per unit area).
A pyramid of biomass is a figure that quantifies the
relative amounts of living biomass found at each trophic
level.
In most ecosystems, the amount of biomass found in each
trophic level decreases progressively as one moves from the
bottom to the top of the food chain.
Pyramid of biomass for a pond. (Source: Data from Whittaker,
R.H. 1961. Experiments with radiophosphorus tracer in
aquarium microcosms. Ecological Monographs 31:157-188).
Primary consumers eat producers.
They generally possess significantly less biomass than
producers.
Plants have evolved numerous mechanisms to protect their
tissues from consumption by herbivores and pathogens
In most ecosystems only a small amount of producer
biomass is eaten.
Significant losses of biomass occur because of digestive
inefficiencies, and return of CO
2
to the atmosphere via
respiration.
Assimilation efficiencies for most terrestrial herbivores range from 20
to 60 percent. Some invertebrates do better than that..some do not.
A very large proportion of the assimilated biomass is lost through the
process of respiration, so only a small amount of the biomass is
available to the next level.
Secondary consumers consume primary consumers.
Tertiary consumers consume secondary consumers, and so forth.
Not all organisms at one level are eaten, because of defensive
mechanisms-and predation is only one way to die.
Defensive adaptations include the ability to fly and run, body
armor, quills and protective spines, and camouflage.
In general, carnivores have higher assimilation efficiencies than
herbivores. These range from 50 to 90 percent.
Only a small fraction of the assimilated energy becomes
carnivore biomass because of the metabolic energy needs of
body maintenance, growth, reproduction, and locomotion.

Most food chains have at most four or
five trophic levels.
The amount of biomass found at
each trophic level is small relative
to amount found at the next lowest
level.
This is because less energy is
available to successive consumers.

http://www.bioquip.com
Decomposers, scavengers, saprophytes, and detritivores are
organisms that eat dead organic matter.
Detritivores eat the dead bodies of living things, such as
carrion, leaf litter, etc..
Scavengers are animals that eat dead animals.
Decomposers are microscopic organisms that break down
organic compounds into nonliving, inorganic precursors.
Saprophytes are organisms that feed on dead organic
matter, this term is usually applied to fungi or bacteria, but
there are plant saprophytes as well
Primary Productivity
Primary productivity is the amount of biomass produced
through photosynthesis per unit area and time by producers.
It is usually expressed in units of energy (e.g., joules /m
2
day)
or in units of dry organic matter (e.g., kg /m
2
year).
Globally, primary production amounts to 243 billion metric tons
of dry plant biomass per year.
The total energy fixed by plants in a community through
photosynthesis is referred to as gross primary productivity
(GPP).
Net vs. Gross Primary Productivity
Most gross primary productivity is used via respiration by the
producers themselves.
Subtracting respiration from gross primary production gives net
primary productivity (NPP)
NPP represents the rate of production of biomass that is available for
consumption (herbivory) by heterotrophic organisms (bacteria, fungi,
and animals). It is also easier to measure, because it tends to
accumulate over time.

Problem:
A plot of Panicum sp. grass has a
gross primary productivity of 10,700
kcal/m
2
year. The grass respire
approximately 9,100 kcal/m
2
year.
What is the net primary productivity?

Answer:
10,700kcal/m2year - 9,100
kcal/m2year=1600kcal/m2year.


Problem:
The field is 10m x 10m. Over the
course of one year, what is the total net
primary productivity for the field?
Answer:
100m2 x
1600kcal/m2year=1.6x10
5
kcal/year.

Problem:
If Panicum grass has an energy
value of 6kcal/gram, and all of the
primary productivity were to
accumulate as biomass, how much
biomass (expressed as dry weight) will
have accumulated in the field over the
course of 1 year?
Answer:
(1.6x10
5
kcal/year x 1
year)/(6kcal/gram)=2.67x10
4
grams or
267kilograms.

Problem:
Suppose herbivores (wild mules) eat ALL this
biomass, and assimilate 10%. The respiration
of the mule is 15kcal/kilogram day.
Would this field be sufficient to support a 150
kilogram mule?
Answer:
The mule would assimilate
(1.6x10
5
kcal/year x
10%)=1.6x10
4
kcal/year.
Over the course of the year, the mule
would require 15kcal/kilogram day x 365
days x 150 kilograms=8.21x10
5
kcal.
The field is not nearly enough. This is why
large herbivores move around so much.


Communities Differ in their Productivity
Globally, patterns of primary productivity vary both spatially and
temporally.
The least productive ecosystems are limited by heat energy,
nutrients and water like the deserts and the polar tundra.
The most productive ecosystems have high temperatures, plenty of
water and lots of available soil nitrogen.

Productivity is high in areas of oceanic upwelling-
oceanic producers, which include diatoms,
dinoflagellates, cryptomonads, and other algae-require
nutrients
Nutrient Cycling
Each biologically important element has nutrient cycle.
A nutrient cycle is the path of an element from one
organism to another, and from organisms into the nonliving
part of the biosphere and back.
Nutrient cycles are sometimes referred to as biogeochemical
cycles, reflecting the fact that chemicals are cycled between
biological organisms, and between organisms and the geologic
(physical) environment.
C, H, O, N
Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen make up most of
the biological molecules found in living organisms. These
elements are passed from organism to organism by chemical
conversion processes, which occur in food webs.
They are also converted from non-living forms to living
forms by photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, and from
living forms to non-living forms through cellular
respiration.
Reservoirs
The non-living forms of carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen form huge reservoirs in
the physical environment. For instance,
nitrogen makes up 78% of the atmosphere as
N
2
, and hydrogen comes from water.
In ecosystems ecology, a reservoir is a supply of a
biologically meaningful element that is not easily
obtainable by living organisms.
Elements can have multiple reservoirs
Carbon
Most of the material substances that make up living organisms consist
of organic compounds of carbon. In contrast, carbon is relatively
scarce in the nonliving part of the Earth.
Carbon exists in the non-living environment as carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, dissolved carbon dioxide (HCO
3
-, etc.) in the
ocean, and as carbonates in the Earths crust.
It is also locked in fossil deposits, and embedded in the ocean
floor as deposits of methane anhydride.

Carbon cycles between the
living and nonliving
components of the biosphere.
The most important reservoir for
carbon is the atmosphere:
Although CO
2
makes up less than
one percent of the atmosphere, it is
very important to the biosphere.
Much of the carbon in your body
was part of the atmosphere, some
of it relatively recently.
When you decompose, it will return
to the atmosphere.
Carbon Fixation
Fixation, in this sense, means capture and conversion to a
biologically useful form.
Eg., water does not need to be fixed, neither does sodium, but
carbon and nitrogen do.
CO
2
is fixed by plants during photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis converts atmospheric CO
2
into organic
carbohydrates by combining them with water, also from the
nonliving part of the biosphere.
This process requires the input of specific light photons, which
plants capture with the pigment chlorophyll.
Once fixed by plants, CO
2
is passed up the food chain by
trophic interactions such as herbivory and predation.


Respiration
Most organisms, including plants, respire.
Respiration liberates carbon back into the atmosphere and provides
energy to the organism.
CO
2
enters the atmospheric reservoir.
If it is not eaten and respired, or decomposed, organic carbon may
become buried and enter a carbon reservoir in the soil, or
ultimately fossilize.
Carbon that is "fixed" can also return to the
atmosphere if the plant material is burned,
either naturally, or through human activities.
Even ancient plant and animal material
that contains carbon that was fixed
millions of years ago can be returned to
the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
Carbon can also be recycled back into the
atmosphere through volcanic activity.
As a tectonic plate goes underneath a
continent, superheated oceanic material
upgasses through geological vents and
reenters the atmosphere.
Carbon, Global Warming,
Anthropogenic Climate Change
CO
2
has a crucial role in the climate of the Earth because it is
quite transparent to light at the visible wavelengths, and relatively
opaque to infrared light.
Gasses with this property are called greenhouse gasses, because
they tend to trap heat, forcing a higher equilibrium temperature.
Methane, and CFCs are also greenhouse gasses, but CO
2
is the most
important because it occurs at higher concentrations.
Geological periods of low CO
2
concentration (such as the present)
are strongly correlated with low global temperatures, higher CO
2

is strongly correlated with higher global temperatures.
Additionally, sudden increases in CO
2
can be linked to a
sudden warming of the climate.
Such an event occurred in the Miocene, 15 million years ago.

There is very solid evidence that CO
2
concentrations have
increased significantly over the course of the last 150 years.
This is partially due to the burning of fossil fuels, and
partially due to deforestation.
By cutting and burning of forests, the carbon that once was
locked in the trees is released into the atmosphere.
Huge stores of fossilized carbon are present within the Earths
crust, much of it buried and fossilized during the Carboniferous
period, 200million years ago.
Liberation of these stores into the atmosphere has the
potential to dramatically change the climate of the Earth.
Evidence is mounting that these higher CO2 levels have already
affected the climate of the Earth.

Some possible effects:
Higher temps, especially in the high latitudes
Drier continental interiors
More unpredictable weather patterns, with more
extreme storms, and extreme heat events
The potential for tropical diseases to enter higher
latitudes and higher elevations
The potential for currently farmable areas to become
too dry to farm
The potential to interfere with oceanic thermohaline
circulation, and cause conditions in Europe and Eastern
North America to become very cold.
The potential to interfere with oceanic productivity
through changes in Ph
The potential for increases in sea level.

N is one of the most common elements that form
biological molecules.
It is a major component of amino acids, also a
primary constituent of nucleic acids.
N
2
makes up 78% of the Earth's atmosphere.
The majority of living organisms are not able to use it in that
form.
N
2
contains a triple bond between the atoms, it is a very stable
molecule and therefore, biologically inert.
A large amount of energy is required to break the triple bond.
lightning is responsible for converting some of the
atmospheric nitrogen into forms that organisms can use.
The process of converting atmospheric nitrogen into forms
that organisms can use is called nitrogen fixation.
The major reservoir for nitrogen is the atmosphere
Although most organisms are not able to
convert nitrogen, there are a few that are able
to "fix" atmospheric nitrogen.
Some free-living soil bacteria as well as some
blue-green bacteria have the ability to convert
nitrogen into ammonia.
Nitrogen is also fixed by symbiotic bacteria
that live in and among the root cells of
several types of plants, most notably, the
legume plants such as beans, peanuts, and
peas. Other plants such as alfalfa, locust,
and alders also have root nodules.

There are a few that are able to "fix" atmospheric
nitrogen.
These include bacteria in the genus Rhizobium
and Bradyrhyzobium, and also some
cyanobacteria, such as Anabaena and Nostoc,
This process, which is energetically expensive,
converts nitrogen into ammonia.
Other bacteria convert ammonia to nitrates
through nitrification.
Most plants use nitrogen in the form of
nitrates, though ammonia is also useful.
Nitrogen fixing bacteria frequently live in mutualistic symbiosis with plants, notably
legumes.
Thus, legumes can be disproportionately important to the
ecology of a plant community.



Once nitrogen is absorbed by plants and built into the plant
molecules, the nitrogen can be passed to consumers and to
decomposer organisms through the food chain.
Nitrogen can be mineralized and converted to
organic compounds that enter the soil or water upon
their death, or enter as waste through their digestive
tracts.
These decomposed nitrogen compounds - ammonia,
nitrite, and nitrates, then become available for other
plants to absorb and recycle. This process is called
ammonification.
Alternatively, other bacteria, known as "denitrifiers,"
convert nitrites and nitrates in the soil to N2O and N2,
which returns to the reservoir in the atmosphere. This
process, which completes the nitrogen cycle, is called
denitrification.

Certain bacteria convert ammonia to
nitrates through nitrification. Most plants
use nitrogen in the form of nitrates.
Once nitrogen is absorbed by plants and
built into the plant molecules, the nitrogen
can be passed to consumers and to
decomposer organisms through the food
chain.


Water
The water cycle is one of the most important processes to living
organisms on Earth.
Water that has evaporated into the atmosphere condenses and falls as
precipitation.
This precipitation will either run off as surface water and collect as streams or
rivers, or it can seep into the ground and collect in huge underground rock
formations called aquifers, that act much like sponges.
The water eventually flows from lakes or streams down into the oceans, where it
can reside for long periods of time, or get evaporated back up into the
atmosphere as water vapor, which collects as clouds.
A portion of the water absorbed into the ground is taken
up by plants, which use the water to transport minerals
internally as well as to take part in the photosynthetic
process.
Some of this water is transferred to animals that feed on
plants; from there, water can cycle within the food web
of an ecosystem.
Water can be given off to the atmosphere by plant
leaves through transpiration, or by animals through
respiration, perspiration, or excretion.