12/09/2016

Ecosystems
any set of interacting
species and its
environment
A system with no
physical size limits

Paradigms of
ecosystem science
flux or movement of
energy
material cycles
biological interactions

Ecosystem controls top-down control

bottom-up control - predation and grazing
- energy and nutrient by higher trophic levels
supply to primary on lower trophic levels
producers controls how controls ecosystem
ecosystems function function

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Energy Flow in
Ecosystems

The laws of
Energy Budgets thermodynamics
at Ecosystem govern energy flow
Level in ecosystems

1. Conservation of 2. Entropy
energy
energy is neither energy
created nor destroyed transformation
when converted from results in reduction
one form into another of the free energy of
the system

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primary production
Primary production primary productivity
harnesses energy gross primary production
from the sun net primary production
biomass
standing crop biomass

Primary production Primary productivity

energy rate at which energy
accumulated by is accumulated by the
plants
plants

Gross Primary Net Primary Production

Production (GPP)
energy remaining in
total energy plant after respiration
assimilated by the plant and stored as organic
(total photosynthesis) matter
NPP = GPP - R

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Biomass Standing crop

biomass
amount of organic
matter accumulated biomass at the time
over time by production of sampling
g/m2 or cal/m2

Factors affecting PP
rate of energy capture
and total surface area of
leaves
temperature and
availability of water and Temperature
nutrients Water
Light

Global changes in NPP

(1982-1999)

Increase
Decrease

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Radiation budget for an

ecosystem
= ground heat flux + latent
heat flux + sensible heat
flux + long wave heat flux
+ primary production

Efficiency measures of
primary production
Efficiency Energy fixed by primary
of primary production
= ----------------------------------------------------
production
Energy in incident
(Ep) sunlight

Solar energy = 5,048

Kcal/m 2/day phytoplankton = 0.5%
herbs = 1-2%
Ep= biomass energy/m2/day
crops = 1.5%
solar energy/m 2/day
forest 2-3.5%
e.g. Corn production
(20 g /m2 /day) x (3.744 Kcal/g)

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Relationship of productivity
to biomass (P:B)
Energy transfer P:B ratios (kg produced year-1
and transfer kg-1 standing crop)
Forest = 0.049
efficiency other terrestrial systems =
0.29
aquatic communities = 17.0

Secondary production
production of new
biomass by
Pattern of
heterotrophic energy flow
organisms

Production at trophic
level n (Pn)
1.Consumption efficiency
(CE)
Respiratory

%age of net production

heat loss
at n (R n)

Energy intake available at one trophic

level (Pn-1) actually
at level n (I n)

ingested by a trophic
Dead
organic

compartment 1 level up
matter

Production available f or (In)

consumption (Pn-1)

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2. Assimilation efficiency 3. Production efficiency

(AE) (PE)
%age of food energy
taken into guts of
%age of assimilated
consumers in a trophic energy (An)
compartment (In) incorporated into new
assimilated across gut wall biomass (Pn)
(An) for growth or work

According to Prophet Isiah,

All flesh is grass
BUT...
From the sun to the grasses,
to the cow, then to man:
How much of the suns
energy reaches man?

What is the
relationship
between sizes and
numbers of
individuals in an
ecosystem?

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organization of a
community based
Trophic Structure on the number of
feeding or energy
transfer

Food chain
Food chain movement of energy
and nutrients that starts
vs. with autotrophs and
ends with carnivores,
Food web detrital feeders and
decomposers

Food chain Food web

interlocking pattern
formed by a series of
interconnecting food
chains

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cycles are rare

Generalizations constant average
proportions of
about food webs
trophic levels and of
trophic links

complexity
food chain lengths do
not vary with primary
(connectance)
productivity but with
changes as species productive space
richness increases
chain length is smaller
omnivory is rare in smaller islands

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chain lengths are

shorter in frequently
disturbed areas
chains are shorter in
2D than in 3D habitats

What is
wrong with predation on minor
the web? species is often omitted
data on food quantity
consumed usually
absent

little data on temporal many species exhibit

variation size- or age-related
species are often lumped shift in diet
into trophic species many species do not
web boundaries are hard fit into discrete
to define trophic level

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B
i

What happens if the o

m

food chain or food web

a
g

takes place in a
n
i
f
polluted lake i
c

ecosystem? a
t
i
o
n

Why are most

terrestrial
ecosystems
green?
The green world
hypothesis

Herbivores consume plants have defenses

relatively little plant against herbivores
biomass because nutrients, not energy,
they are held in usually limit herbivores
check by various abiotic factors limit
factors herbivores

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intraspecific
competition can limit Trophic
herbivore numbers Dynamics in
interspecific Urban
interactions check
herbivore densities Communities

You don't have to become

How has urbanization a mad scientist to know
altered food webs and that human activities
trophic structure? mediated by social and
institutional processes and
values alter ecosystem
structure, control and
dynamics, the temporal and
spatial scales of which
superseding those of
ecological processes!

Changes in stress
related-factors Changes in productivity
increased or decreased increased or
stress-mediated control decreased bottom-up
shift to more stress- control
tolerant or less stress- reduced temporal
tolerant producers and fluctuations in
consumers temperature

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fragmentation changes in species

rapid changes in species
composition
increased spatial
heterogeneity in food web
dynamics within cities
remnant food webs differ
from original habitat
composition
increased or decreased
bottom-up and top-down
control
change in trophic level
numbers
local extinction or addition of
species

reduction of top
predators
trophic cascades
increased competition
and bottom-up control
increased top-down
control of herbivores

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