Energy flow in an ecosystem

Food chain
● A sequence of organisms, each of which serves as a source
of food or energy for the next, is called a foodchain.
● representing the flow of food energy from one feeding
group of organisms to another.
A simple food chain
 10% law
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 Food web
● food web represents feeding relationships within a
community
● food webs consist of a number of food chains
meshed together
● two types of food chains: the grazing food chain,
beginning with autotrophs, and the detrital food
chain, beginning with dead organic matter (Smith
& Smith 2009)
● In a grazing food chain, energy and nutrients
move from plants to the herbivores consuming
them, and to the carnivores or omnivores preying
 All species in the food webs can be distinguished into
● basal species (autotrophs, such as plants),
● intermediate species (herbivores and intermediate level
carnivores, such as grasshopper and scorpion) or
● top predators (high level carnivores such as fox)
● These feeding groups are referred as trophic levels.
● Basal species occupy the lowest trophic level as primary
producer. They convert inorganic chemical and use solar
energy to generate chemical energy.
● The second trophic level consists of herbivores. These are first
consumers. The remaining trophic levels include carnivores
that consume animals at trophic levels below them.
 Applications of Food Webs
● Food webs are constructed to describe species interactions
(direct relationships).
● Food webs can be used to illustrate indirect interactions among
species.
● Food webs can be used to study bottom-up or top-down control
of community structure.
● Food webs can be used to reveal different patterns of energy
transfer in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
 GPP and NPP
Gross primary productivity (GPP) is the rate at which an ecosystem’s
producers (usually plants) convert solar energy into chemical energy as
biomass found in their tissues.
● Net primary productivity (NPP) is the rate at which producers use
photosynthesis to produce and store chemical energy minus the rate at which they
use some of this stored chemical energy through aerobic respiration(R)
● NPP= GPP-R
● NPP measures how fast producers can provide the chemical energy stored in their
tissue that is potentially available to other organisms (consumers) in an ecosystem.
● NPP generally decreases from the equator toward the poles
● the planet’s NPP ultimately limits the number of consumers
(including humans) that can survive on the earth
 Types of ecological pyramids
● Pyramid of numbers
● Pyramid of biomass
● Pyramid of energy