Ecosystem

Structure and Function

 Definitions
• Ecosystem: Defined area in which a community
lives with interactions taking place among the
organisms between the community and its non-
living physical environment.
• An ecosystem is formed by the
interactions between all living and
non-living things
• How do living and non-living things
interact in an environment?
 What is an ecosystem?
• System = regularly interacting
and interdependent components
forming a unified whole
• Ecosystem = an ecological
system;
= a community and its physical
environment treated together as
a functional system
 OR, MORE SIMPLY
• an ecosystem is composed of the organisms
and physical environment of a specified area.
• SIZE: micro to MACRO
 Ecosystems:
Fundamental Characteristics
• Structure:
– Living (biotic)
– Nonliving (abiotic)
• Process:
– Energy flow
– Cycling of matter (chemicals)
• Change:
– Dynamic (not static)
– Succession, etc.
 Abiotic components:
• ABIOTIC components:
• Solar energy provides practically all the energy
for ecosystems.
• Inorganic substances, e.g., sulfur, boron, tend
to cycle through ecosystems.
• Organic compounds, such as proteins,
carbohydrates, lipids, and other complex
molecules, form a link between biotic and
abiotic components of the system.
 BIOTIC components
• The biotic components of an ecosystem can be
classified according to their mode of energy
acquisition.
• In this type of classification, there are:
Autotrophs
• Organisms that produce their own food from an
energy source, such as the sun, and inorganic
compounds.
Heterotrophs
• Organisms that consume other organisms as a
food source.
 Autotrophs
• Autotrophs (=self-nourishing)
are called primary producers.
• Photoautotrophs fix energy from
the sun and store it in complex
organic compounds
(= green plants, algae, some
bacteria)
simple light
photoautotrophs complex
inorganic organic
compounds compounds
 Chemoautotrophs
• that oxidize reduced inorganic substances
(chemosynthesizers) are
bacteria
• (typically sulfur and ammonia
compounds)
• and produce complex organic compounds.
oxygen

reduced complex
inorganic chemoautotrophs organic
compounds compounds
• Consumers feed on organisms
or particulate organic matter.
or particulate organic matter.
• Decomposers utilize complex compounds
in dead protoplasm.
• Bacteria and fungi are the main groups of
decomposers.
• Bacteria are the main feeders on animal
material.
• Fungi feed primarily on plants, although
bacteria also are important in some plant
decomposition processes.
The Laws of Thermodynamics
• Energy flow is a one-directional process.
• sun---> heat (longerwavelengths)

• FIRST LAW of THERMODYNAMICS:

• Energy can be converted from one form

to another, but cannot be created or
destroyed.
• SECOND LAW of THERMODYNAMICS
• Transformations of energy always result in
some loss or dissipation of energy
• or energy exchanges in a closed system, the potential
energy of the final state will be less than that of the initial
state
• or
• Entropy tends to increase (entropy = amount of
unavailable energy in a system)
• or
• Systems will tend to go from ordered states to
disordered states (to maintain order, energy must be
added to the system, to compensate for the loss of
energy)
 Energy flow
• Simplistically:
heat

Producers Consumers

Decomposers

heat

This pattern of energy flow among different

organisms is the TROPHIC STRUCTURE of an
ecosystem.
Terminology of trophic levels
• We can further separate the TROPHIC
LEVELS, particularly the Consumers:
• Producers (Plants, algae, cyanobacteria;
some chemotrophs)--capture energy,
produce complex organic compounds
• Primary consumers--feed on producers.
• Secondary consumers--feed on primary
consumers
• Tertiary consumers--feed on secondary
consumers
 Alternate Terminology
• Producers = plants etc. that capture
energy from the sunrbivores = plant-
eaters
• Carnivores = animal-eaters
• Omnivores--eat both animals and plants
• Specialized herbivores:
• Granivores--seed-eaters
• Frugivores--fruit-eaters
Trophic level: All the organisms that are
the same number of food-chain steps
from the primary source of energy
 Trophic Levels
• A trophic level is the position occupied by an organism in
a food chain.
• Trophic levels can be analyzed on an energy pyramid.
• Producers are found at the base of the pyramid and
compromise the first trophic level.
• Primary consumers make up the second trophic
level.
• Secondary consumers make up the third trophic
level.
• Finally tertiary consumers make up the top trophic
level.
 Trophic Levels Found on an
Energy Pyramid
• The greatest amount of energy is found at the base of
the pyramid.
• The least amount of energy is found at top of the
pyramid.
 Ecological pyramids
• The standing crop, productivity, number of organisms, etc.
of an ecosystem can be conveniently depicted using
“pyramids”, where the size of each compartment represents
the amount of the item in each trophic level of a food chain.

carnivores
herbivores
producers

• Note that the complexities of the interactions in a food web

are not shown in a pyramid; but, pyramids are often useful
conceptual devices--they give one a sense of the overall
form of the trophic structure of an ecosystem.
 Pyramid of energy
• A pyramid of energy depicts the energy
flow, or productivity, of each trophic level.
• Due to the Laws of Thermodynamics, each
higher level must be smaller than lower
levels, due to loss of some energy as heat
(via respiration) within each level.
 Trophic Structure

• Eltonian pyramids
• Number of individuals per species
• Is this pyramid stable?
 Pyramid of numbers
• A pyramid of numbers indicates the number
of individuals in each trophic level.
•
• Since the size of individuals may vary widely and may not indicate the
productivity of that individual, pyramids of numbers say little or nothing about
the amount of energy moving through the ecosystem.

# of herbivores
# of herbivores
 Pyramid of numbers

• The concept that in most food chains, the

number of individuals decreases at each
stage, with huge numbers of tiny
individuals at the base and a few large
individuals at the top, as displayed by
millions of plankton, a moderate number of
large fish, and a few eagles.
 Trophic Structure
• What if we transformed each species into
biomass instead of absolute numbers?
 Biomass
• Energy is sometimes considered in terms of
biomass, the mass of all the organisms and
organic material in an area.
• There is more biomass at the trophic level of
producers and fewer at the trophic level of
tertiary consumers. (There are more plants on
Earth than there are animals.)
• Bio=life Mass=weight
• Bio + Mass = Weight of living things within
an ecosystem.
 Trophic Structure

•Express trophic structure as energy transfer

•Energy pyramids can never be inverted
•Is there room for anyone else
at the top of this food chain?
• Note that pyramids of energy and yearly
biomass production can never be inverted,
since this would violate the laws of
thermodynamics.

• Pyramids of standing crop and numbers

can be inverted, since the amount of
organisms at any one time does not
indicate the amount of energy flowing
through the system.
 ENERGY FLOW IN ECOSYSTEMS

• All organisms require energy,

for growth, maintenance,

reproduction, locomotion, etc.
• Hence, for all organisms there must be:

A source of energy
•
A loss of usable energy
 Transformations of energy
• How is solar energy converted to chemical
energy?
• How does this process influence life as we
see it on earth?
• The transformations of energy from solar
radiation to chemical energy and
mechanical energy and finally back to
heat are a traditional topic of Ecosystem
Ecology.
 Food Chains
• The producers, consumers, and
decomposers of each ecosystem make up
a food chain.
• There are many food chains in an
ecosystem.
• Food chains show where energy is
transferred and not who eats who.
Example of a Food Chain
 Food Webs
• All the food chains in an area make up the food web of the area.
Food web of a hot spring
Food web of the harp seal.
 Primary productivity
• Primary productivity is the rate of energy
capture by producers.
• = the amount of new biomass of
producers, per unit time and space
• Gross primary production (GPP)
• = total amount of energy captured
• Net primary production (NPP)
• = GPP - respiration
• Net primary production is thus the amount
of energy stored by the producers and
potentially available to consumers and
decomposers.
 Ecosystem Services
• The human economy depends upon the services
performed for free by ecosystems.

• The ecosystem services supplied annually are worth

many trillions of dollars.

• Economic development that destroys habitats and

impairs services can create costs to humanity over the
long term that may greatly exceed the short-term
economic benefits of the development.

• These costs are generally hidden from traditional

economic accounting, but are nonetheless real and are
usually borne by society at large.
The benefits people obtain from ecosystems

Eco-sytem Type
and
Ecological Succession