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Ecosystem

Introduction
 An ecosystem can be visualized as a functional unit of nature, where living
organisms interact among themselves and also with the surrounding physical
environment.
 Ecosystem is the interaction of living things among themselves and with their
surrounding environment.
 There are two basic ecosystems
 Terrestrial
 Forest, grassland and desert ecosystem
 Aquatic
 Pond, lake, wetland, river and estuary ecosystem
 Man-made ecosystem: Crop fields and aquarium

Ecosystem- Structure and Function


 The interactions between the various biotic and abiotic factors of an ecosystem
lead to the maintenance of the ecosystem.
 Stratification : Vertical distribution of different species occupying different
levels.
 trees occupy top vertical strata or layer of a forest,
 shrubs the second and
 herbs and grasses occupy the bottom layers.

 The components of the ecosystem are seen to function as a unit when we


consider the following aspects:
 Productivity;
 Decomposition;
 Energy flow; and
 Nutrient cycling

 Example of pond ecosystem:


 The abiotic components include all dissolved inorganic and organic
substances and the rich soil deposit at the bottom of the pond.
 The solar input, cycle of temperature, day length, regulates the rater of
function of the entire pond.
 The producer (autotrophic) includes phytoplankton, some algae and
the floating, submerged and marginal plants found in edge of pond.
 The consumers are represented by zooplankton, free swimming and
bottom dwelling animals.
 The decomposers are the fungi, bacteria especially abundant at the
bottom of the pond.
 The pond performs all the functions of any ecosystem and of the biosphere
as a whole,i.e.,
 Conversion of inorganic into organic material with the help of the
radiant energy of the sun by the autotrophs;
 Consumption of the autotrophs by heterotrophs;
 Decomposition and mineralization of the dead matter to release them
back for reuse by the autotrophs.
 There is unidirectional movement of energy towards the higher trophic levels
and its dissipation and loss as heat to the environment.

Productivity
 Primary production: The amount of biomass or organic matter produced per
unit area over a time period by plants during photosynthesis.
 Unit: weight (g – 2 ) or energy (kcal m – 2 ).
 Productivity: The rate of biomass production.
 Unit: g –2 yr –1 or (kcal m – 2 ) yr –1
 Gross primary productivity (GPP): The rate of production of organic matter
during photosynthesis.
 Net primary productivity (NPP): Gross primary productivity minus respiration
losses (R).
 GPP – R = NPPN
 Net primary productivity is the available biomass for the consumption to
heterotrophs (herbivore and decomposers.
 Secondary productivity: The rate of formation of new organic matter by
consumers.
 The annual net primary productivity of the whole biosphere is approximately 170
billion tons (dry weight) of organic matter. Of this, despite occupying about 70
per cent of the surface, the productivity of the oceans are only 55 billion tons.
 Primary productivity depends upon-
 type of plant species inhabiting a particular area
 photosynthetic capacity of plants
 nutrient availability
 Environmental factors

Decomposition
 Earthworm is said to be ‘friends’ of farmer:
o Breakdown the complex organic matter.
o Loosening of the soil helps in aeration and entry of root.
 The decomposers break down complex organic matter into inorganic
substances like carbon dioxide, water and nutrients, called decomposition.
 Dead plant remains such as leaves, bark, flowers and dead remains of
animals, including fecal matter, constitute the detritus.
 The process of decomposition completed in following steps:
o Fragmentation : Break down of detritus into smaller particles by
detritivore (earthworm).
o Leaching: Water soluble inorganic nutrients go down into the soil
horizon and get precipitated as unavailable salts.
o Catabolism : Bacterial and fungal enzymes degrade detritus into simple
inorganic substances.
o Humification: Accumulation of dark coloured amorphous substances
called humus.
Importance of humus:
o Highly resistance to microbial action.
o Undergo decomposition at an extremely slow rate.
o Being colloidal in nature, it serves as reservoir for nutrients.
o Mineralization: The humus is further degraded by some microbes and
release of inorganic nutrients occur.

Factor affects rate of decomposition:


 Decomposition is largely an oxygen-requiring process.
 The rate of decomposition is controlled by chemical composition of detritus
and climatic factors.
 Detritus rich in chitin and lignin has slow rate of decomposition.
 Detritus rich in nitrogen and water-soluble substance like sugar has faster
decomposition.
 Temperature and soil moisture are most important climatic factor that
regulate decomposition
 Warm and moist environment favor decomposition.
 Low temperature, dryness and anerobiosis inhibit decomposition.

Energy Flow
 Except for the deep sea hydro-thermal ecosystem, sun is the only source of
energy for all ecosystems on Earth.
 Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) : Of the incident solar radiation
less than 50 % of solar radiation; that can be used by autotrophs to make food
from simple inorganic materials.
 Plants capture only 2-10 per cent of the PAR.
 Energy flow in the ecosystem is unidirectional i.e. energy transferred from
producer to consumers.(first law of thermodynamics).
 They follow the Second Law of thermodynamics. They need a constant supply
of energy to synthesize the molecules they require, to counteract the universal
tendency toward increasing disorderliness.
 Producers: The green plant in the ecosystem that produces the food.
 In terrestrial ecosystem: herbaceous and woody plants
 In aquatic ecosystem: various species like phytoplankton, algae and higher
plants.
 Consumers: All animals depend on plants (directly or indirectly) for their food
needs.
 Food Chain:
 Grazing food chain (GFC): A food chain that begins with producers.
 Detritus food chain (DFC): A food chain that starts with dead organic
matter(detritus)
 It is made up of decomposers which are heterotrophic organisms, mainly
fungi and bacteria.
 They meet their energy and nutrient requirements by degrading dead
organic matter or detritus.
 Secrete digestive enzymes that breakdown dead and waste materials into
simple, inorganic materials, which are subsequently absorbed by them.
(saprophytes)
 In aquatic ecosystem GFC is the major conduit for energy flow.
 In terrestrial ecosystems a much larger fraction of energy flows through the
detritus food chain than through GFC
 Different food chains are naturally interconnected e.g. a specific herbivore of
one food chain may serve as food of carnivores of other food chains. Such
interconnected matrix of food chains is called food web.
 Trophic level: Based on the source of their nutrition or food, organisms occupy
a specific place in the food chain that is known as their trophic level.
 Producers – first trophic level
 Herbivores (primary consumer) – second trophic level
 Carnivores (secondary consumer) – third trophic level
 Standing crop: The mass of living material (biomass) that is present in a
trophic level at a particular time.
 The standing crop is measured as the mass of living organisms (biomass) or
the number in a unit area. Measurement of biomass in terms of dry weight is
more accurate.
 10% law: Only 10 per cent of the energy is transferred to each trophic level
from the lower trophic level; as a result of which the number of trophic levels in
the grazing food chain is restricted.

Ecological pyramids:
 An ecological pyramid is a graphical representation representing relationship
between different trophic levels of food chain 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.
Pyramid of numbers in a grassland ecosystem:
 Only three top-carnivores are supported in an ecosystem based on production
of nearly 6 millions plants.

Pyramid of biomass:
 Sharp decrease in biomass at higher trophic levels.

Inverted pyramid of biomass:


 Small standing crop of phytoplankton supports large standing crop of
zooplankton.
 Pyramid of biomass in sea – biomass of fishes far exceeds that of
phytoplankton.

 The pyramid of number in a tree ecosystem is inverted ie.no, of insects


feeding on a big tree.
 An ideal pyramid of energy:

 Only 1% of the energy in the sunlight available to them into NPP.
 Pyramid of energy is always upright, can never be inverted-
 Because when energy flows from a particular trophic level to the next trophic
level, some energy is always lost as heat at each step.
 A trophic level represents a functional level and not a single species as such.
Also, a single species may become a part of more than one trophic level in the
same ecosystem at the same time depending upon the role it plays in the
ecosystem.

Limitations of ecological pyramids:


 The ecological pyramids do not take into account the same species belonging
to more than one trophic level.
 It assumes a simple food chain that almost never exists in nature. It does not
explain food webs.
 Saprophytes are not given a place in ecological pyramids even though they play
a vital role in ecosystem.

Ecological Succession
 The gradual and fairly predictable change in the species composition of a given
area is called ecological succession.
 The composition and structure of a community constantly change in response
to the changing environmental conditions.
 This change is orderly and sequential, parallel with the changes in the physical
environment.
 All the changes lead finally to a community that is in near equilibrium with the
environment and that is called climax community.
 During succession some species colonize and area and their populations
become more numerous, whereas populations of other species decline and
even disappear.
 The entire sequences of communities that successively change in a given area
are called sere.
 The individual transitional communities are termed as seral stages or seral
communities.
 In the successive seral stages there is a change in the diversity of species of
organisms, increase in number of species and total biomass.
 Primary succession: The succession that happens in areas where no life
forms ever existed as in bare rocks, cool lava, newly created pond or reservoir
etc.
 It takes hundreds to thousands of years as developing soil on bare rocks is
a slow process.

Secondary succession: The succession that happens in areas which have


lost all life forms that existed there due to destructions, floods etc such as In
abandoned farm lands, Burned or cut forest, land that have been flooded etc.
 Since some soil or sediment is present, succession is faster than primary
succession.

Retrogressive succession: At any time during primary or secondary


succession, natural or human induced disturbances (fire, deforestation, etc.),
can convert a particular seral stage of succession to an earlier stage.
Successions of plants
 Hydrarch succession: It takes place in wetter areas and the successional
series progress from hydric to the mesic conditions.
 Xerarch succession: It takes place in dry areas and the series progress from
xeric to mesic conditions.
 Both hydrarch and xerarch successions lead to medium water conditions
(mesic) – neither too dry (xeric) nor too wet (hydric).
 Pioneer species: The first species that invade a bare area.

PRIMARY SUCCESSION ON BARE ROCKS:


 Lichens are the pioneer species.
 They secrete acids to dissolve rock, helping in weathering and soil formation.
 The little soil, leads to growth of bryophytes (mosses).
 The bryophytes with time gets succeeded by bigger plants.
 After several more stages, ultimately a stable climax forest community is
formed.
 The climax community remains stable as long as the environment remains
unchanged.
 With time the xerophytic habitat gets converted into a mesophytic one.

PRIMARY SUCCESSION IN WATER :


 Pioneer species are the small phytoplanktons.
 They are replaced with time by rooted-submerged plants.
 Rooted-floating angiosperms are replaced by free-floating plants
 The free-floating plants are replace by reed-swamp, marsh-meadow, scrub and
finally the trees.
 The climax community here is forest.
 With time the water body is converted into land.
 All the succession whether taking place in water or on land, proceeds to a
similar climax community – the mesic.

SECONDARY SUCCESSION:
 The pioneer species depends on the following factors:
 Condition of the soil
 Availability of water
 The environment
 The seeds or other propagules present
 As the soil is present at the beginning the climax community is reached much
quickly.

Nutrient Cycling
 Organism needs constant supply of nutrients to grow, reproduce, and regulate
various body functions.
 Standing state: the amount nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus,
calcium etc. present in soil at any given time is called standing state.
 Nutrient cycling: The movement of nutrient elements through the various
component of an ecosystem is called nutrient cycling.
 Another name of nutrient cycling is biogeochemical cycle.
 Nutrient cycles are of two types:
 Gaseous cycle: The reservoir for gaseous type of nutrient cycle
(nitrogen, carbon) exists in the atmosphere.
 Sedimentary cycle: The reservoir for sedimentary cycle (sulphur,
phosphorus) is Earth’s crust.
 Environmental factors like soil, moisture, pH temperature regulate the rate of
release of nutrient into the atmosphere.
 The function of the reservoir is to meet the deficit which occurs due to
imbalance in the rate of influx and efflux.
Ecosystem-Carbon Cycle
Carbon constitutes 49 percent of dry weight of organism.
Out of total global carbon:
o 71 percent carbon found dissolved in ocean. This oceanic reservoir
regulates the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
o About 1 percent in the atmosphere.
 Fossil fuel also represent a reservoir of carbon. Carbon cycling occurs
through atmosphere, ocean and through living and dead organisms.
 4 X 1013 kg of carbon is fixed in the biosphere by photosynthesis, annually.
Large amount of carbon returned to the atmosphere as CO2 through
respiration of producers and consumers.
Decomposers also return CO2 to reservoir during decomposition process.
Some amount of Carbon is lost to sediments and removed from circulation.
Burning wood, forest fire, combustion of organic matter, fossil fuel, volcanic
activities are additional source for releasing CO2 to atmosphere.

Influence of human activity on Carbon cycling.


Rapid deforestation.
Massive burning of fossil fuel for energy and transport
Increased the rate of release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Ecosystem Phosphorus cycle:

Phosphorus is a major constituent of biological membranes, nucleic acids


and cellular energy transfer system(ATP)
Animals need phosphorus to make shell, bones and teeth.
Reservoir pool of phosphorus is the rock, which contain phosphorus in the
form of phosphates.
During weathering of rock small amount of phosphates dissolved in soil
solution and are absorbed by the roots of the plants.
Herbivore and other animals obtain organic form of phosphorus from plants.
The waste product and dead organisms are decomposed by phosphate-
solubilising bacteria releasing phosphorus.

How phosphorus cycle differs from carbon cycle?


There is no respiratory release of phosphorus into atmosphere.
Atmospheric inputs of phosphorus through rainfall are much smaller.
Gaseous exchange of phosphorus between organism and environment are
negligible.
Ecosystem Services
 Healthy ecosystems are the base for a wide range of economic,
environmental and aesthetic goods and services.
 The products of ecosystem processes are named as ecosystem
services:
 healthy forest ecosystems purify air and water, mitigate droughts and
floods, cycle nutrients, generate fertile soils, provide wildlife habitat,
maintain biodiversity, pollinate crops, provide storage site for carbon and
also provide aesthetic, cultural and spiritual values
 Robert Constanza and his colleagues tried to put price tags on nature’s life-
support services.
 Researchers have put an average price tag of US $ 33 trillion a year on these
fundamental ecosystems services. This is nearly twice the value of the global
gross national product GNP which is (US $ 18 trillion).
 Out of the total cost of various ecosystem services, the soil formation accounts
for about 50 per cent, and contributions of other services like recreation and
nutrient cycling, are less than 10 per cent each. The cost of climate regulation
and habitat for wildlife are about 6 per cent each.

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