Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Waste energy is
low quality and
cannot be reused
Second Law of Thermodynamics
• What are some other examples of the
Second Law of Thermodynamics?
Water is heated due to energy loss from the flowing water and turbines
20-25% of the chemical energy in gasoline is converted to mechanical energy.
The rest is lost into the environment as low quality heat energy.
5% of electricity is changed into useful light. 95% is lost as low-quality heat.
• Photosynthesis
is the process of
converting solar
energy into
chemical energy
stored in food
• CO2 + H20 --->
C6H12O6 + O2
• Respiration is the process of releasing
chemical energy stored in food to be used by
living things.
• C6H12O6 + O2 ---> CO2 + H20
Ecological Concepts
• One-way flow
of energy from
Sun
• Cycling of
crucial elements
• Gravity
Solar Capital: Flow of Energy to and
from the Earth
Greenhouse gasses
water vapor
CO2
Methane
Ozone
As greenhouse gasses
increase, temperature of
troposphere increases.
Ecosystem Components
• Abiotic factors
• Biotic factors
• Range of tolerance for each species
– what factors are important for…
Ecosystem Components
• Limiting factors determines distributions
Law of Tolerance
• The existence, abundance and distribution
of a species is determined by levels of one
or more physical or chemical factors.
Common limiting factors
• Limiting factors – more important in regulating
population growth than other factors.
• Terrestrial ecosystems (on land)
– precipitation
– temperature
– soil nutrients
• Aquatic ecosystems
– temperature
– sunlight
– nutrients
– dissolved oxygen
– salinity
Biological Components of Ecosystems
• Producers
(autotrophs)
• Consumers
(heterotrophs)
– Herbivores,
carnivores, omnivores
– Decomposers and
detritivores
• detritus = dead organic
material
Biodiversity
• Genetic diversity – variety of genetic material
within a species or a population
• Species diversity – the number of species
present in different habitats
• Ecological diversity – the variety of terrestrial
and aquatic ecosystems found in an area or on
earth
• Functional diversity – biological and chemical
processes needed for the survival of species,
communities and ecosystems
Energy Flow in Ecosystems
• reality tends
to be more
complex
than a linear
food chain
Primary Productivity of Ecosystems
• Gross primary productivity (GPP)
• 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.
• Net primary productivity (NPP)
• Rate at which all the plants in an ecosystem produce
net useful chemical energy; equal to the difference
between the rate at which the plants in an ecosystem
produce useful chemical energy (gross primary
productivity) and the rate at which they use some of
that energy through cellular respiration.
Through photosynthesis,
Converts to carbohydrates.
O2 consuming producers
respire,breaking carbo-
hydrates back to CO2.
Waterlogged
soil
Ammonia not taken up by plants
Toxic to plants
Usable by plants
Human Influence on the
Nitrogen Cycle
• Add large amounts of nitric oxide by burning fuel
• Gas converted to nitrogen dioxide gas and nitric
acid (acid rain)
• Add nitrous oxide through anaerobic bacteria
breaking down livestock wastes (global
warming).
• Release nitrogen stored in soils and plants by
destroying forests, grasslands and wetlands.
• Add excess nitrates for agriculture
• Remove nitrogen from topsoils through
harvesting various crops
The Phosphorus Cycle
Slow