Communities:

Trophic Structure
• An organism can acquire energy and organic
compounds it needs by one of two modes:

1. Autotrophic nutrition: Light or chemical energy

is used to synthesise complex organic molecules.
Auto = self
Trophos = to feed
2. Heterotrophic nutrition: Consuming other
organisms.
Hetero = other
Trophos = to feed
• The feeding relationships between organisms in
an ecosystem is called the trophic structure.
– The transfer of energy through the trophic levels is
referred to as a food chain.

Decomposer
 Decomposer

• In an ecosystem, energy flows from the sun

through organisms.
Conservation of Energy
• The first law of thermodynamics, states that:

– “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only

transferred or transformed.”
• The primary source of energy for an
ecosystem is solar radiation.

• Photosynthetic organisms (autotrophs),

transfer this energy into chemical energy that
they use to grow.
 Solar radiation

• The amount of
energy stored in
organic molecules is assimilated
called the
assimilated energy.
 Solar radiation
heat
reflected
• Most of the energy
intercepted
that is intercepted
by the plant is not assimilated
assimilated (see transmitted
diagram).

Energy assimilated
=
energy intercepted – (energy reflected + energy
transmitted + energy lost as heat)
 5

4
Trophic levels
are the position
3
that an organism
has in a food
chain. 2

1
An interconnected
group of food chains is
called a food web.

Arrows follow
the transfer of
energy/matter from
the producers through
the trophic levels.
• When consumers
feed, only about 10%
of the energy is
available from one
trophic level to the
next.
– 90% is lost as waste
products, or through Available to next trophic level as fat
and tissues in the organism
respiration (as heat).
• Ecologists show the
availability of energy
in an ecosystem in a
pyramid of energy.
• There is more
energy available at
lower trophic
levels.

• Large predators are

usually rare because
many ecosystems
do not have enough
energy to support a
large population of
predators.
Conservation of Mass
• Like energy, matter cannot be created or
destroyed.

• It is changed into different forms as it travels

through the ecosystem.
• A measure of matter in ecosystems is
biomass.
– This is the amount of dry organic material present
in the ecosystem.
• A pyramid of biomass shows the mass at each
trophic level:
• Decomposer and detritivore organisms feed
on dead organic matter (detritus).
• This breaks down the detritus in a process
called decomposition.
• Decomposers, like bacteria or fungi, secrete
enzymes to digest the organic matter.
– Then they absorb the breakdown molecules.
• Detritivores eat the organic matter
– E.g. earthworms eating their way through the soil.
Energy enters, flows through, and exits an ecosystem.
Chemical nutrients cycle within it.