Environmental Engineering Fundamentals

UNIT-II

Ecology is the scientific study of relationships in the natural world. It includes relationships between
organisms and their physical environments (physiological ecology); between organisms of the same
species (population ecology); between organisms of different species (community ecology); and
between organisms and the fluxes of matter and energy through biological systems (ecosystem
ecology).
What is an ecosystem?
 An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a functional unit comprising all the organisms in
a particular place interacting with one another and with their physical environment and
interconnected by an ongoing flow of energy and a cycling of materials.
 The meaning of the word ecology was given by German Biologist Haeckel in 1869.
 The term Ecosystem was first proposed by A.G. Tansley in 1935.
 The word ecology is derived from Greek words ‘Oikos’ meaning house, habitat or place
of living and ‘Logos’ meaning to study.
 Danish botanist, Eugenius Warming elaborated the idea of Ecology.
Ecosystems ecology deals with the flow of energy and cycling of nutrients among organisms
within a community and between organisms and the environment.

STRUCTURE OF AN ECOSYSTEM
The term structure refers to the various components of an ecosystem.
An ecosystem has two major components - Biotic (living) components and Abiotic (non living)
components.
Biotic components
The members of biotic components of an ecosystem are grouped in to three based on how they
get food.
1. Producer (Plants)
2. Consumer ( Animals)
3. Decomposers (Micro-organisms)
1. Producers? Examples?
2. Consumers also called as Heterotrophs. Consumers are further classified as
(i) Primary consumers or Herbivores or Plant eaters: Primary consumers are also called
herbivores, they directly depend on the plants for their food. Examples: Insects, rat, goat, deer,
cow etc.
(ii) Secondary consumers (primary carnivores) (Meat eaters): Secondary consumers are
primary carnivores, they feed on primary consumers. They directly depend on herbivores for
their food. Ex: Frog, cat, snakes, small birds, etc.
(iii) Tertiary consumers (Secondary carnivores) (Meat-eaters): Tertiary consumers are
secondary carnivores, they feed on secondary consumers. They depend on the primary carnivores
for their food. Ex: Hawk, Eagle, Tiger, Lion, etc.
Omnivore: Organisms that feed both on plants and animals. Ex: Human, rat, birds.
3.Detritivore: They feed on dead organisms, wastes of living beings and partially decomposed
matter. Ex: Termites, earthworm, ants etc.
 Decomposers break down complex organic matter into inorganic substances like carbon
dioxide, water and nutrients and the process is called decomposition.
 Dead plant remains such as leaves, bark, flowers and dead remains of animals, including
fecal matter, constitute detritus, which is the raw material for decomposition.
 The important steps in the process of decomposition are fragmentation, leaching,
catabolism, humification and mineralisation.
 Detritivores (e.g., earthworm) break down detritus into smaller particles. This process is
called fragmentation. By the process of leaching, water soluble inorganic nutrients go
down into the soil horizon and get precipitated as unavailable salts. Bacterial and fungal
enzymes degrade detritus into simpler inorganic substances. This process is called as
catabolism.
Abiotic (non-living) components
The non-living components (physical and chemical) of ecosystem collectively form a community
called abiotic components (or) abiotic community.
Ex: Climate, soil, water, air, energy etc.,
1. Physical components: Include the energy, climate, nutrients and living space that the
biological community needs. They are useful for the growth and maintenance of its
member.
Ex: Air, water, soil, sunlight, etc.,
2. Chemical Components: They are the sources of essential nutrients.
• Organic substances : Protein, lipids, carbohydrates, etc.,
• Inorganic substances: All micro ( Al, Co, Zu, Cu) and macro elements (C,H, O, P, N, P,
K) and few other elements.
Levels of organization or ecological hierarchy
Ecologists have identified four fundamental levels of the organization to study the interactions
between organisms and their environment. These levels of organization include individual
organism, population, community and ecosystem.
1. The most basic level of the ecological organization starts with the individual (a single
plant, insect or bird). At the level of the organism, ecology deals with how individual
organisms are affected by (and how they affect) their environment. Organismal ecology
gives focus on the individual organisms’ behaviour, physiology, morphology, etc. in
response to the environment.
2. The next level of organization is the population. The term population has many uses and
meanings in other fields of study. In ecology, a population is a group of individuals of the
same species that occupy a given area. The population ecology deals with population
growth and how and why a population changes over time.
3. More complex level of organization of the interacting population of different species
form is the community. Ecological communities are made up of interacting populations
 of different species within some defined geographical area. Community ecology deals
with the composition and organization of ecological communities and community
development.
4. Communities occur on a wide variety of scales from small pond communities to huge
tropical rainforests. At the largest scales, these communities are known as ‘biomes’. A
biome is a distinct ecological community of plants and animals living together in a
particular climate (for example, tropical rainforests, coniferous forests, savannas). It is
characterized by distinctive vegetation distributed over a wide geographical area and
defined largely by regional climatic conditions.
5. Biosphere. At the widest level of analysis, the biosphere represents the totality of all things on
Earth, including their interactions. The biosphere includes all ecosystems on Earth and how they
interact together. By default, the biosphere includes climate, geology, the oceans and human
pollution. This level of analysis can seem abstract, but it frequently has practical applications.
Global climate change, for example, examines how the destruction of one ecosystem -- like the
Amazon rainforest -- can lead to a loss of global climate regulation, and affect life on a part of
Earth distant from the Amazon

Biomes

Aquatic Grassland Forest Desert Tundra

Freshwater Tropical Temperate Hot & Dry Arctic

Marine Temperate Tropical Semi arid Alpine

Taiga Coastal

6. Ecosystem (given at the beginning of the unit)

Productivity
Productivity refers to the rate of formation of biomass per unit area in an ecosystem. Productivity
is the rate at which organic matter is created by producers.
Biomass is the amount of organic matter present at any given time. The biomass is generally
expressed as wet or dry biomass. Dry biomass refers to the mass of living matters after it has
been dried to a constant mass. Wet biomass refers to the mass of living matters including its water content.
The primary productivity is the rate at which biomass is produced per unit area by the primary
producers (both photoautotrophs and chemoautotrophs).
The total amount of CO2 fixed to organic carbon by the photoautotrophs per unit time (i.e. total
rate of photosynthesis) is referred to as gross primary productivity (GPP). A proportion of this
fixed organic carbon is respired away by the photoautotrophs.
The total amount of organic carbon that is oxidized to CO2 by photoautotrophs per unit time is
the autotrophic respiration (RA).
The difference between GPP and RA is known as net primary productivity (NPP).
 Net primary productivity (NPP):
GPP – R
NPP represents the actual rate of production of new biomass that is available for consumption by
heterotrophic organisms (fungi and animals).
The carbon fixed by photoautotrophs through photosynthesis can leave the ecosystem as
inorganic carbon (usually in the form of carbon dioxide) via either autotrophic respiration (RA)
or, after consumption by heterotrophs, via heterotrophic respiration (RH).
The sum of RA and RH is called total ecosystem respiration (RE).
The difference between GPP and RE is known as net community productivity (NCP), also
termed as net ecosystem productivity.

Secondary productivity by herbivores is invariably less than that of the plants on which they
feed.
Where has the missing energy gone?
 First, not all of the plant biomass produced is consumed alive by herbivores.
 Second, not all the plant biomass that is eaten by herbivores (or herbivore biomass is
eaten by carnivores) is assimilated and made available for incorporation into consumer’s
biomass. Some are lost in the form of feces.
 Third, not all the energy that has been assimilated is actually converted into biomass. A
proportion is lost as respiratory heat. This occurs both because no energy conversion
process is ever 100% efficient and also because animals do work which requires energy,
again released as heat.
ENERGY FLOW IN ECOSYSTEM
Organisms in an ecosystem capture solar energy, transform and transfer energy and store energy.
The behavior of energy in ecosystems can be conveniently shorthanded as ‘energy flow’ because
energy transformations are directional in contrast to the cyclic behavior of matters.
Energy flow is the key function in the ecosystem. The operation of an ecosystem is consistent
with the laws of thermodynamics that deal with the relationships between energy and matter in a
system. The behaviour of the energy in the ecosystem is based on two basic laws of
thermodynamics.
 The first law of thermodynamics which states that energy cannot be created or
destroyed but only transformed.
 The first law is also called the law of conservation of energy.
  Explanation: The sun is the ultimate source of energy for almost all ecosystems present
on the earth. Photosynthetic organisms convert solar energy to chemical energy (energy
transformation), but the total amount of energy does not change. The total amount of
energy stored in organic molecules synthesized by the process of photosynthesis plus the
amounts dissipated as heat must equal the total solar energy intercepted by the
photosynthetic organisms.

 2nd law of thermodynamics - “Whenever energy is transformed, there is a loss of energy

through the release of heat”.
 Explanation: Energy flows unidirectionally. Energy is transferred between tropic levels
in the form of heat as it moves from one trophic level to another trophic level.
The loss of energy takes place through respiration, work, running, hunting etc.
Only about 1-5 percent energy of incident solar radiation, or 2-10 percent of PAR
(Photosynthetically Active Radiation) is actually captured by the photosynthetic process.

Overall concept:
 The primary producers carry out respiration simultaneously in which they break down
some of the organic compounds in their bodies to release chemical energy.
 A portion of this chemical energy is used to make ATP, which in turn is used to power
various metabolic processes.
 Ultimately, the chemical energy released by respiration is converted to heat. If organisms
convert some chemical energy to heat, the conversion is one-way; they cannot use heat as
a source of energy.
 The chemical energy from primary producer passes from one heterotrophy trophic level
to the next. Only the energy present in net primary productivity of primary
producers can be used by other trophic levels.
 As chemical energy moves from one trophic level to the next, a great deal of the energy is
diverted all along the way.
 It means that the amount of chemical energy available to secondary consumers (i.e.
primary carnivores) is far less than that available to primary consumers (i.e. herbivores)
and the amount available to tertiary consumers (i.e. secondary carnivores) is far less than
that available to secondary consumers.
Important question: Why does the amount of energy decrease as energy is passed from one
trophic level to the next? (THINK)