Environment and its Components

 The sum total of all surroundings of a living organism, including

natural forces and other living things, which provide conditions for
development and growth as well as of danger and damage
 Continuous interaction is essential's

1. Maintenance of biodiversity

2. Maintenance of all gaseous and material cycles and

interdependence of living organisms among themselves and
with a biotic environments

3. Maintenance of ecological order and natural balance, which

depend on the food chain relationship, sustainable
productivity and biotic interaction
Comprises of Biotic and Abiotic components

Abiotic Components Biotic Components

Light Plants
Humidity & Water Animals –Humans,
Temperature parasites and micro-
Atmospheric Gases organisims
Topography etc Decomposers
Ecosystem and its Components
The study of the relationship between organisms and between the organisms
and the environment is ecology.

The structural and functional unit of ecology is known as the ecosystem.

Continuous production and exchange of materials between the living and non-
living components.

Plants and animals of a regional climate and soil type interact to produce a
characteristic land community known as biome.

In biome emphasis is on the biotic community

 Biotic Component

 All living components of the environment

 The biotic component can be categorized as

1. Autotrophic Component or Producers

2. Heterotrophic Component or Consumers
 Autotrophs or Primary producers

 All those organisms green plants, bacteria and algae which

contain chlorophyll and is capable of converting solar
energy into chemical energy and storing food stuff in the
presence of carbon dioxide and water
 Heterotrophs or Consumers

 All other organism unable to make their own food

but depend on other organism for food to meet their
energy needs for survival.

 Depending on feeding habits they can be classified as

a. Primary Consumers
b. Secondary Consumers
c. Tertiary Consumers
Secondary and tertiary consumers may be

1. Predators which hunt, capture and kill their prey

2. Carrion feeders which feed on corpses

3. Parasites which are smaller than host, live either inside or outside
the host. Depend on the metabolism of their hosts for their food
supply

4. Animals with flexible food habits- omnivores

 Saprophytes or Decomposers

 The dead bodies of producers and consumers are eaten and

broken down into simple inorganic substances by certain
microbes.
 The simple substances are utilized again by producers to
prepare food.
 Water, carbon dioxide, phosphates, nitrogen ,sulphates and
organic compounds are by-products of activity of orgnisms
 Abiotic Components

 Inorganic and non living parts

 Limiting factor
 Trophic levels

Links in the food chain are known as trophic levels.

Energy flows from each level

From lower to higher

Loss of energy at each level

 Food Chain

 A sequence of organism that feed on one another for

survival----- food chain.

 Some animals eat only one kind of food and

therefore are members of a single food chain.
Man can neither increase the amount of energy nor
improve efficiency in energy transfer- but can shorten the
food chain.

25,000 cal
 Types of Food Chains

 Grazing food chain

 Detritus food chain

 Food Web

 Food chains inter-linked with one another to form a

food web.
 It constitutes a number of alternate paths for energy
flow and provides greater stability to the ecosystem
 Bioaccumulation and Biomagnifications

 refers to how pollution enters a food chain. Here

there is an increase in concentration of a pollutant
from the environment to the first organism in a food
chain.
 Refers to the tendency of pollutants to concentrate
as they move from one tropic level to the next.
the pollutant must
1. Long-lived
2. Mobile
3. Soluble in fats
4. Biologically active
 Material Cycling and Energy Flow

 Energy does not cycle in the ecosystem, its flow is

unidirectional.
 First law-energy cannot be created or
destroyed it can change from one form to
another.
 Energy passes from herbivore to carnivore not vice versa
 The ecosystem can maintain its entity and prevent the
collapse of the system due to unidirectional energy flow
 Balance of Nature

 The component parts like food chain, material cycling and

energy flow are closely interrelated to different organisms
thereby maintaining a dynamic equilibrium amongst them.
 The science of systems of control in an ecosystem is known
as cybernetics