Ecosystem

• Ecosystem a community of living organisms (biotic) interacting with each other and their physical environment (abiotic)
• Four major components of Earth's life support systems

  • Atmosphere
  • Hydrosphere
  • Geosphere
  • Biosphere
• Life is sustained by The flow of energy from the sun through the biosphere, the cycling of nutrients within the biosphere, and gravity
• Three factors that sustain the Earth's life

  • One-way flow of high-quality energy from the sun
  • Cycling of nutrients
  • Gravity
• Producers make the nutrients they need from compounds and energy obtained from their environments
• Producers

  Land: Green Plants

  Freshwater and Marine ecosystems: Algae and Aquatic Plants

  Open Water: Phytoplankton
• Consumers cannot produce the nutrients they need through photosynthesis or other processes
• Types of Consumers

  • Primary consumers (herbivores)
  • Secondary consumers (carnivores)
  • Omnivores
• Decomposers release nutrients from the dead bodies of plants and animals and return them to the soil, water, and air for reuse by producers
• Detrivores Feed on the wastes or dead bodies of other organisms
• Ecosystems are supported by the energy from the sun
• As energy flows through ecosystems in food chains and webs

  The amount of chemical energy available to organisms at each succeeding feeding level decreases
• Food Chain a sequence of organisms, each of which serves as a source of food or energy for the next

• Food Web a complex network of interconnected food chains

• Net Primary Productivity (NPP) measures how fast producers can produce the chemical energy that is stored in their tissue and potentially available to other organisms (consumers) in an ecosystem

• Some ecosystems produce plant matter faster than others do (high net primary productivity or NPP)
• Biogeochemical Cycle The elements and compounds that make up nutrients move continually through air, water, soil, rock, and living organisms within ecosystems

• Biogeochemical Cycles

  • Carbon and oxygen cycle
  • Nitrogen Cycle
  • Phosphorus Cycle
  • Sulfur Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle

  1. Nitrogen Fixation

  2. Nitrification

  3. Denitrification

  4. Ammonification
• Ecology is how organisms interact with each other and their nonliving environment
• Organism is the individual of species
• Population is an organism of the same species in the same place
• Communities is an different populations interacting in the same place
• Ecosystems is an community interacting with the physical environment
• Biosphere everywhere that life occurs
• Life is sustained with the help of:

  • atmosphere
  • hydrosphere,
  • geosphere
  • biosphere
• Life is sustained by the flow of energy from the sun through the biosphere, the cycling of nutrients within the biosphere, and gravity.
• Three factors sustain the Earth's

  • The One-way flow of high-quality energy
  • The cycling of nutrients
  • Gravity
• The One-way flow of high-quality energy from the sun, through living things in their feeding interactions, into the environment as low-quality energy, and eventually back into space as heat.
• Gravity, allows the planet to hold onto its atmosphere and helps to enable the movement and cycling of chemicals through the air, water, soil, and organisms.
• Abiotic consists of nonliving components
• Biotic consists of living biological components. Also includes dead organisms, dead parts of organisms, and the waste products of organisms.
• Producers and Consumers are the living components of ecosystems
• TYPES OF CONSUMERS

  • primary consumers, or herbivores
  • secondary consumers, or carnivores
  • Omnivores
• Food chains and food webs show how producers, consumers, and decomposers are connected as energy flows through trophic levels in an ecosystem.
• Matter, in the form of nutrients, cycle within and among ecosystems and the biosphere.