Ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. These components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. As ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can come in any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces (although some scientists say that the entire planet is an ecosystem).
Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential abiotic components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun. It generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present.
By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposers release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily used by plants and other microbes. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, the parent material which forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem. Other external factors include time and potential biota.
The Essay on Energy Flow Among Organisms of a Food Chain in the Desert
... the desert are the organisms that depend on plants for their source of energy. The major consumers in ... for non-natives to survive, but the desert’s ecosystem is very sensitive and not easy to regenerate. ... and military usage damages the desert’s soil. The trampling of the soil causes it to compact and ... are biotic, or living, factors in the desert. The abiotic, or non-living, factors in the desert ...
Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to periodic disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can end up doing things very differently simply because they have different pools of species present. The introduction of non-native species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops.
While the resource inputs are generally controlled by external processes like climate and parent material, the availability of these resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors like decomposition, root competition or shading. Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present. Although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance and succession.
Ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which people depend; the principles of ecosystem management suggest that rather than managing individual species, natural resources should be managed at the level of the ecosystem itself. Classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this. Arthur Tansley, a British ecologist, was the first person to use the term “ecosystem” in a published work. Ecosystem processes
Energy and carbon enter ecosystems through photosynthesis, are incorporated into living tissue, transferred to other organisms that feed on the living and dead plant matter, and eventually released through respiration. Most mineral nutrients, on the other hand, are recycled within ecosystem. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors, also called state factors, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem. The most important of these is climate .
The Essay on Locus Of Control Rotter External Person
Are You the Master of Your Fate Julian Rotter suggested that people feel their fate is decided either by internal or external forces. They control it themselves by their decisions and actions or they feel that there are outside forces such as luck influencing their destiny. Rotter believed that a person s personality was affected by whether they felt their fate was controlled internally or ...
Climate determines the biome in which the ecosystem is embedded. Rainfall patterns and temperature seasonality determine the amount of water available to the ecosystem and the supply of energy available (by influencing photosynthesis).
Parent material, the underlying geological material that gives rise to soils, determines the nature of the soils present, and influences the supply of mineral nutrients. Topography also controls ecosystem processes by affecting things like microclimate, soil development and the movement of water through a system.
This may be the difference between the ecosystem present in wetland situated in a small depression on the landscape, and one present on an adjacent steep hillside. Other external factors that play an important role in ecosystem functioning include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to periodic disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Time plays a role in the development of soil from bare rock and the recovery of a community from disturbance.
Similarly, the et of organisms that can potentially be present in an area can also have a major impact on ecosystems. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can end up doing things very differently simply because they have different pools of species present. The introduction of non-native species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Unlike external factors, internal factors in ecosystems not only control ecosystem processes, but are also controlled by them. Consequently, they are often subject to feedback loops.
While the resource inputs are generally controlled by external processes like climate and parent material, the availability of these resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors like decomposition, root competition or shading. Other factors like disturbance, succession or the types of species present are also internal factors. Human activities are important in almost all ecosystems. Although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Primary production
The Essay on Geothermal Energy Heat Water Direct
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY Geothermal energy is one of the oldest sources of energy. It is simply using and reusing (reusable energy) heat from the inside of the earth. Most of the geothermal energy comes from magma, molten or partially molten rock. Which is why most geothermal resources come from regions where there are active volcanoes. Hot springs, geysers, pools of boiling mud, and fumaroles are the ...
Primary production is the production of organic compounds from atmospheric or aquatic carbon dioxide. It may occur through the process of photosynthesis, using light as a source of energy, or chemosynthesis, using the oxidation or reduction of chemical compounds as a source of energy. Almost all life on earth is directly or indirectly reliant on primary production. The organisms responsible for primary production are known as primary producers or autotrophs, and form the base of the food chain. In terrestrial eco regions, these are mainly plants, while in aquatic ecoregions algae are primarily responsible.
Primary production is distinguished as either net or gross, the former accounting for losses to processes such as cellular respiration, the latter not. Primary production is the production of chemical energy in organic compounds by living organisms. The main source of this energy is sunlight but a minute fraction of primary production is driven by lithotrophic (A lithotroph is an organism that uses an inorganic substrate (usually of mineral origin) to obtain reducing equivalents for use in biosynthesis (e. g. carbon dioxide fixation) or energy conservation via aerobic or anaerobic respiration) organisms using the chemical energy of inorganic molecules.
Regardless of its source, this energy is used to synthesize complex organic molecules from simpler inorganic compounds such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O).
The following two equations are simplified representations of photosynthesis (top) and (one form of) chemosynthesis (bottom): CO2 + H2O + light CH2O + O2 CO2 + O2 + 4 H2S CH2O + 4 S + 3 H2O In both cases, the end point is reduced carbohydrate (CH2O), typically molecules such as glucose or other sugars.
These relatively simple molecules may be then used to further synthesise more complicated molecules, including proteins, complex carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids, or be respired to perform work. Consumption of primary producers by heterotrophic organisms, such as animals, then transfers these organic molecules (and the energy stored within them) up the food web, fueling all of the Earth’s living system GPP and NPP Gross primary production (GPP) is the rate at which an ecosystem’s producers capture and store a given amount of chemical energy as biomass in a given length of time.
The Term Paper on Detailed Information On Solar Energy
The sun is the source of all life on earth. Thanks to the sun, there is light, warmth and food on the earth. Many kinds of energy on earth originate from and through solar radiation. Since the sun doesn’t have the same strength at all places and all times, the earth is warmed up unequally. This causes wind which can be converted into electricity by means of wind turbines. By evaporation we ...
Some fraction of this fixed energy is used by primary producers for cellular respiration and maintenance of existing tissues (i. e. , “growth respiration” and “maintenance respiration”).
The remaining fixed energy (i. e. , mass of photosynthate) is referred to as net primary production (NPP).
NPP = GPP – respiration [by plants] Net primary production is the rate at which all the plants in an ecosystem produce net useful chemical energy; it is equal to the difference between the rate at which the plants in an ecosystem produce useful chemical energy (GPP) and the rate at which they use some of that energy during respiration.
Some net primary production goes toward growth and reproduction of primary producers, while some is consumed by herbivores. Both gross and net primary production are in units of mass / area / time. In terrestrial ecosystems, mass of carbon per unit area per year (g C/m2/yr) is most often used as the unit of measurement. Terrestrial production On the land, almost all primary production is now performed by vascular plants, with a small fraction coming from algae and non-vascular plants such as mosses and liverworts.
Before the evolution of vascular plants, non-vascular plants likely played a more significant role. Primary production on land is a function of many factors, but principally local hydrology and temperature (the latter covaries to an extent with light, the source of energy for photosynthesis).
While plants cover much of the Earth’s surface, they are strongly curtailed wherever temperatures are too extreme or where necessary plant resources (principally water and light) are limiting, such as deserts or polar regions. Water is “consumed” in plants by the processes of photosynthesis (see above) and transpiration.
The latter process (which is responsible for about 90% of water use) is driven by the evaporation of water from the leaves of plants. Transpiration allows plants to transport water and mineral nutrients from the soil to growth regions, and also cools the plant. Diffusion of water out of a leaf, the force that drives transpiration, is regulated by structures known as stomata. These also regulate the diffusion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the leaf, such that decreasing water loss (by partially closing stomata) also decreases carbon dioxide gain.
The Essay on Deep Water Ocean North Atlantic
Cold water discovered in the subtropical Atlantic was brought there by a current which had originated in the polar region; temperature measurements in the real ocean and computer models show there is a southward outflow of cold deep water from the Arctic throughout the Atlantic. This cold water is replaced by warm surface waters, which gradually give off their heat to the atmosphere as they flow ...
Certain plants use alternative forms of photosynthesis, called Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) and C4. These employ physiological and anatomical adaptations to increase water-use efficiency and allow increased primary production to take place under conditions that would normally limit carbon fixation by C3 plants (the majority of plant species).
Oceanic production In a reversal of the pattern on land, in the oceans, almost all photosynthesis is performed by algae, with a small fraction contributed by vascular plants and other groups.
Algae encompass a diverse range of organisms, ranging from single floating cells to attached seaweeds. They include photoautotrophs from a variety of groups. Eubacteria are important photosynthetizers in both oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems, and while some archaea are phototrophic, none are known to utilise oxygen-evolving photosynthesis. [2] A number of eukaryotes are significant contributors to primary production in the ocean, including green algae, brown algae and red algae, and a diverse group of unicellular groups. Vascular plants are also represented in the ocean by groups such as the seagrasses.
Unlike terrestrial ecosystems, the majority of primary production in the ocean is performed by free-living microscopic organisms called phytoplankton. Larger autotrophs, such as the seagrasses and macroalgae (seaweeds) are generally confined to the littoral zone and adjacent shallow waters, where they can attach to the underlying substrate but still be within the photic zone. There are exceptions, such as Sargassum, but the vast majority of free-floating production takes place within microscopic organisms. The factors limiting primary production in the ocean are also very different from those on land.
The availability of water, obviously, is not an issue (though its salinity can be).
Similarly, temperature, while affecting metabolic rates (see Q10), ranges less widely in the ocean than on land because the heat capacity of seawater buffers temperature changes, and the formation of sea ice insulates it at lower temperatures. However, the availability of light, the source of energy for photosynthesis, and mineral nutrients, the building blocks for new growth, play crucial roles in regulating primary production in the ocean.
The Term Paper on The Ocean Coastal Zone
INTRODUCTION Ecology is the study of living things interacting with its environment, other species, and its own kind. Its a study of all external condition and factors, both biotic (living) and a-biotic (nonliving), that affect an organism. To carry out this study, scientists observe different ecosystems: forests, deserts, grasslands, oceans, or any kind of interaction between organisms and their ...
Light The sunlit zone of the ocean is called the photic zone (or euphotic zone).
This is a relatively thin layer (10–100 m) near the ocean’s surface where there is sufficient light for photosynthesis to occur. For practical purposes, the thickness of the photic zone is typically defined by the depth at which light reaches 1% of its surface value. Light is attenuated down the water column by its absorption or scattering by the water itself, and by dissolved or particulate material within it (including phytoplankton).
Net photosynthesis in the water column is determined by the interaction between the photic zone and the mixed layer. Turbulent mixing by wind energy at the ocean’s surface homogenises the water column vertically until the turbulence dissipates (creating the aforementioned mixed layer).
The deeper the mixed layer, the lower the average amount of light intercepted by phytoplankton within it. The mixed layer can vary from being shallower than the photic zone, to being much deeper than the photic zone.
When it is much deeper than the photic zone, this results in phytoplankton spending too much time in the dark for net growth to occur. The maximum depth of the mixed layer in which net growth can occur is called the critical depth. As long as there are adequate nutrients available, net primary production occurs whenever the mixed layer is shallower than the critical depth. Both the magnitude of wind mixing and the availability of light at the ocean’s surface are affected across a range of space- and time-scales.
The most characteristic of these is the seasonal cycle (caused by the consequences of the Earth’s axial tilt), although wind magnitudes additionally have strong spatial components. Consequently, primary production in temperate regions such as the North Atlantic is highly seasonal, varying with both incident light at the water’s surface (reduced in winter) and the degree of mixing (increased in winter).
In tropical regions, such as the gyres in the middle of the major basins, light may only vary slightly across the year, and mixing may only occur episodically, such as during large storms or hurricanes.
Nutrients Mixing also plays an important role in the limitation of primary production by nutrients. Inorganic nutrients, such as nitrate, phosphate and silicic acid are necessary for phytoplankton to synthesise their cells and cellular machinery. Because of gravitational sinking of particulate material (such as plankton, dead or fecal material), nutrients are constantly lost from the photic zone, and are only replenished by mixing or upwelling of deeper water.
This is exacerbated where summertime solar heating and reduced winds increases vertical stratification and leads to a strong thermocline, since this makes it more difficult for wind mixing to entrain deeper water. Consequently, between mixing events, primary production (and the resulting processes that leads to sinking particulate material) constantly acts to consume nutrients in the mixed layer, and in many regions this leads to nutrient exhaustion and decreased mixed layer production in the summer (even in the presence of abundant light).
However, as long as the photic zone is deep enough, primary production may continue below the mixed layer where light-limited growth rates mean that nutrients are often more abundant. Iron Another factor relatively recently discovered to play a significant role in oceanic primary production is the micronutrient iron. [3] This is used as a cofactor in enzymes involved in processes such as nitrate reduction and nitrogen fixation. A major source of iron to the oceans is dust from the Earth’s deserts, picked up and delivered by the wind as aeolian dust.
In regions of the ocean that are distant from deserts or that are not reached by dust-carrying winds (for example, the Southern and North Pacific oceans), the lack of iron can severely limit the amount of primary production that can occur. These areas are sometimes known as HNLC (High-Nutrient, Low-Chlorophyll) regions, because the scarcity of iron both limits phytoplankton growth and leaves a surplus of other nutrients. Some scientists have suggested introducing iron to these areas as a means of increasing primary productivity and sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.