LIFE

ECOSYSTEM ECOLOGY (#7)

Ecosystems are large areas on our planet that contain both living and non-living material.
Example: Giant Kelp Forests - producers taking energy from the sun and converting them into food, which is eaten by
herbivores (e.g. sea urchin), which in turn are eaten by carnivores (e.g. sea otter). The kelps, sea urchins and otters play
significant roles in this cycle. Eliminate one and the whole cycle malfunctions.

In this cycle, the otters are determined as the keystone species. Keystone species hold everything in place. If we take out
our keystone species - which in this case is the otter, the population of the sea urchin will arise since there is no consumer
around, which results to the destructive grazing of kelp forests called as urchin barren.

Individual - population - community - ecosystem - biomes - biosphere (Earth)

Biomes - terrestrial & aquatic (major)

Terrestrial Biomes (e.g. desert, forest) -factors that determine a type of terrestrial biome: average temperature (annual) &
average precipitation (annual)

Major Terrestrial Biomes:

Tropical Rainforest - hot with high precipitation
Tropical Forest or Savanna - still hot but have less precipitation
Subtropical or Desert - lesser precipitation
Temperate Grassland - precipitation is less than from savannas
Woodland Shrublands - hot, dry summers and mild to moist winters
Temperate Seasonal Forest - changes through 4 distinct seasons - winter, spring, summer and fall
Temperate Rainforest - cooler but receives tons of precipitation
Boreal Forest - freezing temperatures
Tundra - frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing
seasons.

Aquatic Biomes
Factors that determine a type of aquatic biome: salinity, depth, water flow
Freshwater - lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, wetlands
Middle - salt marshes, mangroves
Saltwater - intertidal zones, coral reef, open ocean

Ecosystems - food webs: producers & consumers (interactions), abiotic (temperature, the pH, water flow) / non-living
things
Example: Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Producers - primary consumers - secondary consumers, tertiary consumers

*arrow goes to energy passed*

Decomposers - detritiviore: can eat large bulk amount of dead material

Individual - niche: a job that an individual has; environment plays a huge role in determining how a niche will perform
Species diversity is good. The more species an ecosystem has, the healthier that ecosystem will be.

Niche generalist (e.g. raccoon) - can live in a variety of places, eats a variety of food, and can survive in a wide range on
environmental conditions
Niche specialist (e.g. koala) - live in one habitat, one food source but may eat a few others, intolerant of
climate/environmental conditions, does not adapt easily

GEC ELECTIVE 1 – ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VILLAFUERTE, JANE ANDREA T.

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Edge effect - affects the health of an ecosystem; boundary between two ecosystems, can actually support more species

Problem: humans most of the times create edges (e.g. trail or road), therefore leaving not as much natural boundary that
can damage the health of the ecosystem. When the edge becomes the largest portion in an ecosystem, we have failed to
protect it. The largest area should be the one with the healthiest edge that we possibly can.

ENERGY FLOW IN ECOSYSTEMS (#8)

Sun - major energy source

Ecological pyramid

Sun (photosynthesis) or chemicals (chemosynthesis) - producers - respiration - consumers - heat & producers -
productivity
Consumers - trophic levels - ecological pyramid - efficiency

Food from sun or chemicals, the amount of energy converted is measured through productivity, either through the Gross
Primary Productivity or the Net Primary Productivity. Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) is the overall energy converted
and Net Primary Productivity (NPP) is how much the plants gets after it uses some of the energy for respiration.

Consumers are classified in trophic levels - losing energy along the way, one way to measure this is by using an
ecological pyramid by determining the efficiency and biomass

Energetics is the study of how energy gets from something into organisms.

Energy productivity - measurement of energy getting into producers. Unfortunately, hardly any of that energy gets into the
plant. 99% moves and bounces off of it, only 1% goes into the producer. That's what we call the gross primary
productivity. It's the amount of energy the plant actually gets. Respiration is where most of the energy goes, and a small
percent of it goes to what is called the net primary productivity. That's the amount the plant gets if we subtract the amount
of energy it used for respiration.

An accurate model of measuring how energy is used is through an ecological pyramid. As the cycle progresses, a
significant amount of energy (heat) is lost.

Energy pyramid = amount of energy (kilocals)

Ecological efficiency = proportion to next level

Biomass pyramid = how much material is made, measured by standing crop - an amount that is there at one point in time.

ECOSYSTEM DIVERSITY (#9)

Earth provides life support for the society of humans which is driven by economy. Economics is the choices that we are
making but economy, if we put a monetary value on it, it is going to be a really large number. It is 75 trillion dollars. That is
the world gross product. It is what we make - products, and also what we do - services. It's a huge number but it is
actually small compared to what is called ecosystem services.

Ecosystem services is what the planet makes and what the planet does for us. It's free. It's in our resources. And it can be
more efficient the more diverse the ecosystems in our planet are. As we degrade ecosystems, we're going to have to take
some of that cost.

GEC ELECTIVE 1 – ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VILLAFUERTE, JANE ANDREA T.

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Biodiversity is a measure of the variety of life in our planet. One way to measure biodiversity is through the variety of
species on our planet. Speciation is what we do to increase the number of species. The evolution by which that occurs is
evolution by natural selection. Extinction is the decrease of the number of species.

Other ways to measure biodiversity is by genetic diversity or we could measure ecosystem diversity. That lends to the
idea of ecosystem services, what the world can do for us. And it does things in four different areas - supporting,
provisioning, regulating and cultural significance as well.

We can measure biodiversity in one of three ways - measuring the different types of ecosystems or species or genes that
we have within those individuals.

We get species diversity through evolution. Darwin pointed out that all life on our planet shares one common ancestor.
This representation is not really accurate. A cladogram is a scientific branching diagram showing the cladistic relationship
between numbers of species. When one species becomes two, we call it speciation. There is now an increase of the
number of species on the planet. It takes a longer span of time for speciation to occur than extinction.

Evolution through natural selection is the major mechanism of speciation.

There are 5 mass extinctions we had over time. Most scientist argue that we are on the verge of what is called the 6th
mass extinction. In short, we are witnessing extinction in a drastic rate that we have never seen in the past. And the major
reason why this is happening is ultimately because of humans.

Ecosystem services supports us through production. It provides us food, air to breathe and soil used to grow our crops.

Ecosystem services provisions are making the food that we eat, water, lumber, minerals or even energy from the sun.

Ecosystem services regulates e.g. filtration of water, it occurs naturally. Decomposition, carbon sequestration or climate
regulation are all other services that the ecosystem provides.

Ecosystem services also provides cultural significance. Be it historical, spiritual, educational, and recreational. If monetary
value is established on ecotourism that comes from that area, it is hugely valuable.

NATURAL ECOSYSTEM CHANGE (#10)

Climate change affects ecosystems. The earth in relation to the sun - specifically the solar output, affects the climate. Not
only that, changes in our orbit, our volcanoes or plate tectonics also affected our climate and therefore affecting the
ecosystems. It affects land as well as it affects life. The worst case of this change will be mass extinction. It is then
followed by adaptive radiation, where different species come back. But the natural response of species would be moving
back and forth to survive as the climate changes. On the other hand, when the land is damaged, destroyed or changed,
succession happens. This is when life moves back into that area. It can be either primary or secondary. In primary
succession, the soil and community is gone. In secondary succession, the soil and community actually remain.

GEC ELECTIVE 1 – ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VILLAFUERTE, JANE ANDREA T.

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BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES (#11)

George Rhoads – invented the famous gigantic kinetic sculptures in museums; from one of his planning documents, it
shows how energy from the sun or within the earth can drive things like the water cycle and rock cycle; it is also a good
model for how nutrients move around on our planet ꟷ carbon and nitrogen is set and just moves around between the
living and nonliving world.

Matter is conserved and the set amount moves between the biotic/biosphere (living) and abiotic (nonliving) world. The
nutrients that are found and are a necessity for us are best remembered in the mnemonic, CHNOPS. CHNOPS is carbon
(C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O), phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S). The abiotic factors are the atmosphere,
hydrosphere and lithosphere. All of these are biogeochemical cycles ꟷ biological, chemical and geological processes,
and are going to be how nutrients move from the living and nonliving world.

Energy from the sun moves through producers to consumers to other consumers and eventually is lost as heat. But as we
move to matter, everything on our planet is conserved, there is no sun anymore. Producers get the nutrients that they
need from their environment (abiotic factors) and consumers eat plants or eat consumers that eat plants. All these matter
consumed go back to the environment again through these biogeochemical cycles. The CHNOPS are the nutrients that
life needs that we get from those biogeochemical cycles. If we organize these nutrients into the five cycles below then we
have hydrogen and oxygen (H, O) for the water cycle, carbon (C) for the carbon cycle, nitrogen (N) for the nitrogen cycle,
phosphorus (P) for the phosphorus cycle and sulfur (S) for the sulfur cycle. If these atoms cease to exist, then so is life.

Biogeochemical Cycles

Water Cycle
We are filled with water and we use oxygen to release energy and transfer energy with hydrogen. The cycle starts
with evaporation off of ocean, lakes or streams and then evapotranspiration; it is still evaporation but is transpired through
the leaves of plants. The cycle now moves from liquid to gas. Condensation will happen in the clouds and then
precipitation will follow, where water will run off over the surface towards ground water and the whole cycle begins again.

Carbon Cycle
We are built of macromolecules and that is what carbon the building block of. Carbon is received through
photosynthesis, both in plants in land and phytoplankton in the ocean. Carbon can be received by consumers through its
diet by eating plants or other consumers will get carbon by eating those consumers (e.g. cows eat plants; humans eat
cows). The carbon, now consumed, will eventually be released through cellular respiration, where it goes back again as
carbon dioxide. This carbon can also be covered by rock thus creating coal, oil, and fossil fuels. It basically restores the
carbon in the rock. We extract this carbon by digging a well, or we can have combustion, in which a factory releases that
carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere and the whole cycle continues again.

Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen is one of the big components in the proteins that make us up. Most of the nitrogen found in the
atmosphere is nitrogen gas. In order to get this into living systems, nitrogen fixation is done. Bacteria (thriving in the roots
of plants or nodules) are a vital part of this cycle because of how they can nitrogen fix (nitrogen fixation) or take nitrogen
out of the atmosphere and put it into the living world. Basically what it does is that it converts the nitrogen in the
atmosphere into usable ammonia. We use ammonia as fertilizers, where it will be assimilated through plants’ roots, in
which we take in as we eat those plants. How it goes back into the atmosphere is pretty complex because what happens
is that we have death and then decay. Bacteria or fungi will then convert that nitrogen into ammonium, and then other
bacteria or nitrifying bacteria are going to convert that ammonium into nitrites and then nitrates. These nitrates can be
further leached and can move into the water supply of our planet.
Further into the cycle, nitrogen, together with phosphorus, are called limiting nutrients. This means that it is of
utmost need for the living. Once the living gets these nutrients, it grows really quickly as algae, which is a good thing but
can sometimes lead to eutrophication or the excess of nutrients in bodies of water mainly due to runoff from land resulting
to a dense and fast growth of plant life ꟷ algae in particular, where in a similar fashion, they quickly die. Other bacteria
need to break them down through respiration which results to an alarming death of animal life from to lack of oxygen.
The nitrogen gets back into the atmosphere through denitrification by denitrifying bacteria and the whole cycle
begins again.
GEC ELECTIVE 1 – ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VILLAFUERTE, JANE ANDREA T.
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Phosphorus Cycle

Phosphorus is found in DNA, RNA and the ATP. It is also part of these so-called limiting nutrients, together with
nitrogen.
The phosphorus cycle is one of the slowest, turning cycles. It involves rock that has phosphorus being uplifted
and then weathering and erosion, where the phosphorus moves into the soil and then into the water supply. Fertilizers can
be added, and since phosphorus is a limited nutrient, it can also promote eutrophication. Assimilation will then follow, it
gets into the plants and then we eat. What eventually happens next is that we die; so through excretion and decay, the
phosphorus is then returned into the water supply. It eventually works its way into the ocean and will eventually settle out
as sediments. This cycle does not involve the atmosphere. So, later on, those sediments become part of phosphate rocks
which are then uplifted again. It takes a very long time for this cycle to turn because the atmosphere is not included.

Sulfur Cycle

Together with nitrogen, sulfur is also one of the big components in the proteins that make us up. Sulfur cycle is
going to move from the oceans, the sulfur. Bacteria will then convert that sulfur into dimethyl sulfide which eventually
becomes sulfur oxide or sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide can also be increased through volcanism; volcanoes release
hydrogen sulfide which becomes sulfur dioxide. Factories also release sulfur dioxide. It goes down into the planet by
being rained down as sulfuric acid and sulfates, and then assimilation and then decomposition, same way as the previous
cycles. It finally works its way back through the water supply and it is going to become sulfur in the oceans and the cycle
continues again.
Rock cycle forming some sulfur into fossil fuels can also be later extracted again and the cycle continues.

GEC ELECTIVE 1 – ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VILLAFUERTE, JANE ANDREA T.

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