ENV 101

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Ecosystems
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Basic Concepts

▪ Life is sustained by the

interactions of many
organisms functioning
together, interacting through
their physical and chemical
environments

▪ This is referred to as an
ecosystem

▪ Basic characteristics of
ecosystems:
▪ Ecosystem structure

▪ Ecosystem processes
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Ecosystem Structure

▪ Ecosystem structure
▪ An ecosystem has two major parts
▪ Living
▪ Called the ecological community is the set of species
interacting within the ecosystem
▪ Non-living
▪ Consists of the physical-chemical environment including
the local atmosphere, water and mineral soil (on land) or
other substrate (in water)

▪ Ecosystem processes
▪ An ecosystem has two major processes
▪ Cycling of elements
▪ Flow of energy
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Ecological
Communities

▪ Defined in two ways

▪ A set of interacting species found in
the same place and functioning
together, thus enabling life to persist
▪ The community exists of all the
species found in an area, whether or
not they are known to interact
(Practical/operational definition)

▪ One form of interaction found within

communities is the transfer of energy,
chemical elements and compounds
between different species (known as a
food chain)
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Ecological Communities
(terminology)

▪ Food Chain
▪ The linkage of who feeds on whom

▪ Food Web
▪ A network of who feeds on whom,
consisting of complex linkages

▪ Trophic Level
▪ All the organisms in a food web that are
the same number of feeding levels
away from the original energy source
▪ In most ecosystems this original
source is the sun
▪ In others it is the energy in certain
inorganic compounds
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Ecological
Communities
(terminology)
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Ecological Communities
(terminology)

▪ Heterotrophs

▪ Organisms that feed on other organisms

▪ Herbivores:

▪ Feed on plants, algae or photosynthetic

bacteria (2nd Trophic Level)

▪ Carnivores:

▪ Feed directly on the herbivores (3rd

Trophic Level)

▪ Feed on third level carnivores (4th

Trophic Level)

▪ Decomposers (detritivores)

▪ Organisms that feed on dead organic material

(occupies the highest trophic level in a given
ecosystem)
5th Trophic level

FLOW OF ENERGY
4th Trophic level

3rd Trophic level

2nd Trophic level

1st Trophic level

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Complexity (A simple food web)
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Complexity (A more complex food
web)
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Ecosystems as
Systems

▪ Ecosystems are open

systems having both a flow of
matter and energy

▪ Ecosystems vary greatly in

their structural complexity as
well as the clarity of their
boundaries

▪ What all ecosystems

therefore have in common is
NOT size or shape, but
processes which give them
the ability to sustain life
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Cycling of Elements

▪ 21 chemical elements required by at least some form of life

▪ Elements must be available at the right time, in the right

amounts, and in the right ratio compared to other elements

▪ They must also be recycled (food to waste back to food)

▪ For complete recycling several species need to interact

▪ A simple ecosystem (theoretical)

▪ Via photosynthesis green plants/algae produce sugars
▪ These sugars are used to build organic compounds (e.g.
woody tissue)
▪ HOWEVER, green plants cannot break this material down into
its original organic compounds. The presence of other species
are required
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Flow of
Energy
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Laws of Thermodynamics

▪ First law of thermodynamics

▪ Aka law of the conservation of energy

▪ In any physical or chemical change, energy is neither

created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form
to another

▪ Second law of thermodynamics

▪ Whenever some work is done, some energy is inevitably
converted to heat (which from our organisms perspective
gets “lost” to the surrounding environment)
▪ More specifically this deals with a change in the state of
the energy from organised to disorganised (which we
refer to as entropy)
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An
impossible
ecosystem
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Energy Flow

▪ The net flow of energy through an

ecosystem is always a one-way flow
▪ For example:
▪ Green plants/algae make sugars
during photosynthesis using
energy derived from the sun
▪ Herbivores use the sugars
manufactured by plants as their
main source of energy (process of
respiration)

▪ Therefore, ecosystems must exist

between a source of usable energy,
and a sink for degraded energy
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Biological Production
and Biomass

▪ Biomass: the total amount of organic matter in

any ecosystem

▪ Production: The change in biomass over a

given period

▪ Biological production: The capture of usable

energy from the environment to produce
organic matter or organic compounds (also
referred to as energy fixation)

▪ Gross production: the increase in stored energy

before any is used

▪ Net production: the amount of newly acquired

energy stored after some energy has been
used
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Biological
Production
and Biomass
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Energy Efficiency

▪ How efficiently organisms use

energy is important in terms of the
conservation of biological resources

▪ No system can be 100% efficient

(2nd Law of Thermodynamics)
therefore energy is degraded as it
flows through the food web

▪ Energy efficiency: The ratio of

output to input as well as the
amount of useful work obtained
from some amount of available
energy
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Energy Efficiency

▪ Can be viewed in two ways (depending on your

perspective)

▪ Converts a lot of energy to stored reserves

while using little for biological functions
(Herbivores)

▪ Uses as much energy as possible and stores

very little (Carnivores)

▪ Trophic-level efficiency: The ratio of production of

one trophic level with that of the next lower trophic
level

▪ Never very high

▪ More than 90% of energy transferred between

trophic levels is lost as heat

▪ Less than 10% (typically 1% in natural

systems) is fixed as tissue

▪ Example: Cattle require ±7.2kg of vegetable

matter to produce ±0.45 kg of meat
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Ecological Stability
and Succession

▪ Ecosystems are dynamic and constantly changing

due to external as well as internal processes

▪ When disturbed ecosystems can recover through

environmental succession if the damage is not
too great.

▪ Succession: The process of development and

establishment of an ecosystem

▪ Primary succession: Establishment and

development of an ecosystem where one did not
exist previously

▪ e.g. vegetation growing on recent lava flows

▪ Secondary succession: Reestablishment of an

ecosystem after disturbances. There are remnants
of a previous biological community including organic
matter and seeds
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Ecological Stability
and Succession
▪ Early-successional species: also
known as pioneers, they have
evolved to the environmental
conditions in early stages of
succession (grow rapidly and
spread easily)

▪ Late-successional species: These

tend to be slower growing, longer
lived and can persist under intense
competition with other species

▪ Middle-successional species:
Characteristics in between the
other two types