• Food chains are linear arrangements showing

the transfer of energy and organic materials

through various trophic levels of marine
organisms.
• Food chain is the linear unidirectional flow
of energy and materials through the food from
one trophic level to the other.
• A food chain consists of following trophic
levels:
✔ Producers
✔ Consumers
Primary consumers
Secondary consumers
Tertiary consumers
✔ Decomposers
 • Trophic levels:
• The feeding levels from producers to
consumers is called trophic level.
• The energy flows only one way through
various trophic levels.
✔ First trophic level- Producers –
Autotrophs
✔ Second trophic level – Primary consumers
– Herbivores
✔ Third trophic level – Secondary
consumers – Carnivores
✔ Fourth trophic level – Tertiary consumers
– Top level carnivorous
Producers
• They are autotrophs and represent 1st trophic level which can
synthesize the food using light energy.
• They produces food for all other organisms of ecosystem.
• They are largely green plants and photosynthetic prokaryotes which
converts inorganic substrate into organic food by the process of
photosynthesis.
• The rate at which the radiation energy is stored by the process of
photosynthesis in the green plant is called gross primary productivity
(GPP).
 Consumers
• They are heterotrophs which obtain energy from producers directly or indirectly.
They can be further divided as-
i. Primary consumers:
• They are animals which feeds directly on plants.
• They are 1st level consumers and therefore they are known as primary consumers.
• Primary consumers make the II trophic level in food chain.
• Examples: herbivores animals
ii. Secondary consumers:
• These are animals that feeds on other animals.
• They are omnivores and carnivores.
iii. Tertiary consumers:
• These animals get their food from all consumers.
• They are top carnivores.
 Decomposers
• They feed on dead and decayed plants or animals.
• They make up the final trophic level in food chain.
• They decompose the dead and decay matter and helps in recycling the
nutrients.
• They are classified into two class:
✔ Micro-decomposers: Most, however, are microscopic, they cant be seen
with the naked eye for example, they are known as micro decomposers.
Example: Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoa
✔ Macro-decomposers: Some decomposers are big enough to see without
a microscope. Example: Earth worm, Nematodes, Molluscals
• The number of trophic levels varies from up to six in the open ocean,
to about four over continental shelves, to only three in upwelling
zones.
• The number of trophic levels in a food chain is inversely correlated
with the predominant size of the phytoplankton.
• Food chains in nutrient-rich upwelling areas are characterized by
having large chain-forming diatoms, high primary productivity, few
trophic levels, and a high biomass of fish or marine mammals.
• In the nutrient-poor open ocean, the primary producers are
nanoplanktonic autotrophic flagellates with relatively low
productivity; this leads to long food chains and, because of increased
energy loss in longer food chains, there is a relatively lower biomass
of top-level predators.
 Energy flow in ecosystem
• The process of transfer of energy to various trophic level of food chain is known as flow of
energy.
• Energy flow in ecosystem from energy source to autotrophs to heterotrophs.
• For most ecosystem the energy source is the sun and the autotrophs are the green plants and
BGAs. The solar energy that is captured in an ecosystem is based on the amount of
photosynthesis that occur there.
• The energy flow is best described by net primary productivity(NPP)= Gross primary
productivity (GPP)- Respiration (Rp)
• NPP= GPP-Rp
• Secondary productivity is the amount of bio-mass produced by consumers. It is dependent on
the amount of energy made available by primary producers and so on.
• The entire process of energy flow is summarized in following points;
✔ The flow of energy in an ecosystem is always linear ie uni direction
✔ At each energy step in food chain, the energy received by the organisms is used for its own
metabolism and maintenance. The left over energy is passed to next higher trophic level.
Thus the energy flow decreases with successive trophic level.
✔ Flow of energy follows the ecological rule of 10%.
• Food chains are ways of describing the linear passage of energy and
organic materials contained in food from the first trophic level of
primary producers, through the consumer levels of herbivores and
carnivores, to the top-level predators.
• There is an energy loss with each transfer between trophic levels
because of metabolic demands and conversion of chemical energy to
heat. However, chemical elements that are incorporated in food are
recycled through the decomposition of organic materials; this process
releases dissolved inorganic compounds that can once again be taken
up by phytoplankton and converted to organic compounds during
photosynthesis.
Food web
• Food web can be defined as, a
network of food chains which
are interconnected at various
tropic levels.
• Number of feeding connections
amongst different organisms of a
biotic community.
• It is also known as
consumer-resource system
THE MICROBIAL LOOP
• The microbial loop describes a trophic pathway where, in aquatic systems,
dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is returned to higher trophic levels via its
incorporation into bacterial biomass, and then coupled with the classic food
chain formed by phytoplankton-zooplankton-nekton.
• This is relevant in aquatic and soil systems.
• Organisms involved in the microbial loop include DOM, bacteria, micro
flagellates, protozoa, nematodes, ciliates, phytoplankton and various other
nutrient cycling bacteria.
• The microbial loop is ecologically significant because it is
directly involved in nutrient cycling and primary production of biomass
ultimately effecting large-scale ecological functions.
• The microbial loop can best be explained starting with
DOM.
• DOM, or dissolved organic carbon, are concentrations of
free organic carbon below 0.45 micrometers.
• DOM consists of molecules which were once parts of
living organisms such as proteins, carbohydrates lipids and
nucleic acids.
• This DOM is then utilized as a food source for bacteria.
• Bacteria are the only organisms capable of recycling DOM
making them an extremely vital component for the
continuation ecosystem function.
• From here, basic food web interactions take hold.
• All this organic matter is transferred from smaller levels to
the largest levels of ecosystems.
• The DOM is recycled back into the system as various
organisms from all trophic levels die off and are broken
down smaller and smaller.
Marine Nutrients
•
Nutrient as limiting factor
•
 Nitrate:
• Nitrate sources include:
✔ Atmospheric deposition
✔ Organic matter decomposition
✔ Excretion by organisms
✔ Urban and agricultural run off
✔ Multi-cellular organism assimilate nitrogen as organic molecules-amino acid and
nucleic acids.
• Natural waters mostly has nitrate in the range of 1 mg/l.
• Primary source of excess nitrate concentrations in aquatic systems is surface
runoff from agricultural or landscaped areas which have received excess nitrate
fertilizer.
• These levels of nitrate can also lead to algae blooms, and when nutrients become
limiting (such as potassium, phosphate or nitrate) then eutrophication can occur.
•
•
• Other nutrients:
• Other nutrients as given below is also important for some phytoplankton and
life forms and processes.
1. Sodium
2. Selenium
3. Boron
4. Cobalt
5. Silicon
6. Iodine
7. Vanadium
8. Chloride