Lecture 2 Ecosystem
Lecture 2 Ecosystem
Department: BBA
An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as
weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life.
Ecosystem
Ecology
Deals with study of animal and plant interrelationship and also there
relation with environment.
The term Ecosystem was first proposed by British ecologist A.G. Tansely.
Ecosystem
Biotic Components
Biotic components refer to all living components in an
ecosystem. Based on nutrition, biotic components can be
categorized into :
Autotrophs, or Producers
Heterotrophs or Consumers
Saprotrophs (or Decomposers).
ECOSYSTEM – STRUCTURE
Producers include all autotrophs such as plants. They are called autotrophs as they
can produce food through the process of photosynthesis.
Consumers or heterotrophs are organisms that depend on other organisms for food.
Primary consumers are always herbivores as they rely on producers for food.
Secondary consumers depend on primary consumers for energy. They can either
be carnivores or omnivores.
Tertiary consumers are organisms that depend on secondary consumers for food.
Tertiary consumers can also be carnivores or omnivores.
ECOSYSTEM – STRUCTURE
ECOSYSTEM – STRUCTURE
Abiotic Components
Abiotic components are the non-living component of an
ecosystem. It includes air, water, soil, minerals, sunlight,
temperature, nutrients, wind, etc.
ECOSYSTEM – FUNCTION
Except for the deep sea hydro-thermal ecosystem, sun is the only source
of energy for all ecosystems on Earth.
Of the incident solar radiation less than 50 per cent of it is
photosynthetically active radiation (PAR).
We know that plants and photosynthetic bacteria (autotrophs), fix suns’
radiant energy to make food from simple inorganic materials.
Plants capture only 2-10 per cent of the PAR and this small amount of
energy sustains the entire living world.
Food Chain
A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem. Each
living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food
chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they
move through the ecosystem.
Food web
A food web consists of all the food chains in a single ecosystem. Each
living thing in an ecosystem is part of multiple food chains. Each food
chain is one possible path that energy and nutrients may take as they
move through the ecosystem.
ECOLOGICAL PYRAMIDS
You must be familiar with the shape of a pyramid. The base of a pyramid is broad and it
narrows down at the apex. One gets a similar shape, whether you express the food or
energy relationship between organisms at different trophic level. Thus, relationship is
expressed in terms of number, biomass or energy. The base of each pyramid represents
the producers or the first trophic level while the apex represents tertiary or top level
consumer. The three ecological pyramids that are usually studied are
Pyramid of number;
Pyramid of biomass and
Pyramid of energy.
x
Pyramid of Number
Pyramid of Biomass
Pyramid of Energy
The movement of nutrient elements through the various components of an
ecosystem is called nutrient cycling. Another name of nutrient cycling is
biogeochemical cycles (bio: living organism, geo: rocks, air, water). Nutrient
cycles are of two types:
Gaseous (Nitrogen, Carbon)
Sedimentary (Sulphur, Phosphorus)
Carbon Cycle
Nitrogen Cycle
Phosphorus Cycle
Sulphur Cycle
Topic for Next Lecture