Module 2: ECOSYSTEM

Objectives:

This module aims to introduce students to the main functions of ecosystem. How one
factor affects the other components within the ecosystem. It also aims to provide students
knowledge on the importance of the balance in nature to limit ecological devastation.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Enumerate the different components of the ecosystems.

2. Give the characteristics of the biotic community.
3. Determine the effect contributed by one factor to the entire ecosystem.
4. Explain the importance of maintaining the balance in nature.
5. Identify the relationship of the organisms in a community.
Lesson 2: Ecosystem

An ecosystem has biotic factors which refer to the living things in the environment
(prokaryotes, protists, animals, fungi, and plants), and abiotic factors which comprise the
nonliving physical and chemical conditions of the environment. It is a functional unit in which
energy and nutrients flow between the physical or abiotic environment and a community of
organisms, the biotic community. These two components continually affect each other, resulting
a complex interdependence that often lead to a “balance in nature”. Any slight modification in
one factor can disrupt this balance, causing the entire ecosystem to change.
The abiotic environment can change the biotic community. A long dry season, for
example, usually kills green plants which are the sources of food for most animals, dead woody
plants due to this drought could be a reason for a devastating fire. Strong winds can uproot trees
on blow flying insects and birds far away from their natural habitat. A long period of freezing
temperatures kills many organisms too.
Similarly, biotic community also affects the abiotic environment in many ways. For
instance, releasing oxygen during photosynthesis, photosynthesic organisms gradually added O2
to the atmosphere, thus changing the abiotic environment to its 21 percent O2 level. Plants
contribute to the formation and fertility of soils. Coral reefs change the flow and temperatures of
oceans. Dense forests modify humidity, temperature, and the amount of light and rain that
reaches the forest floor.
Biologists divide ecosystems into five subcomponents- two for abiotic environment and
three for the biotic community.
Abiotic environments are;
1. Abiotic resources which include sunlight- a source of energy from outside the ecosystem
and inorganic substances (N, CO2, H2O, P, K) that are needed for the construction of
organic compounds;
2. Abiotic conditions, the non-resource components which include the substrate (air, water,
soil) in which the organism lives and the conditions such as temperature and water
currents.
Biotic community are:
1. Primary producers known as autotrophs ( algae, bacteria, and green plants) which use
sunlight or chemical energy to manufacture food from inorganic substances);
2. Consumers, heterotrophs that feed on other organisms or organic wastes; and
3. Decomposers or saprophytes, mainly fungi and bacteria that get their nutrition by
breaking down organic compounds in wastes and dead organisms.

Answer the following questions;

1. Arrange the following subcomponents of ecosystem.

_______________Primary producers

Biotic Community _______________?

Ecosystem__ _______________?

Source of energy

______?_______ ______________?

______________?
2. List five examples of consumers or heterotrophs.

3. What will happen when there are no decomposers?

4. Where can we say that there is ‘imbalance of nature”?

5. Define ecosystem according to what you have understand the term.