Republic of the Philippines

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN PHILIPPINES

University Town, Northern Samar
Website: uep.educ.ph; Email: uepnsofficial@gmail.com

What Keeps Us and

Other Organism
Alive?
Submitted by:
Burac, Merry Kiss B.
Armenio, Rick Arthur
Lazo, Alexa Cheny

BS Entrepreneurship 1

Submitted to:
Bianca Amigo
PEE Prof.
 Introduction:

Every one of us is sustained by various kinds of natural resources – such as

food, materials, and energy that are harvested or otherwise extracted from the
environment. Our need for those resources is absolute – we cannot survive without
them. Moreover, the same is true of all other species – every organism is a
component of an ecosystem that provides the means of subsistence.

Our ability to stay creative, flexible, collaborative and adaptive in the face of
changing environments is key to address the challenges we collectively face. This
learning course will provide a broad perspective of the historical roots of design
ecology thinking and explore how regenerative design, permaculture,
environmentally sustainable economic development and engineering and
environmental restoration could support the fundamental redesign of humanity’s
impact on Earth.

Welcome to People and the Earth’s Ecosystem, an interdisciplinary study of

how the earth works, how humans interact with it, and how we can address the
world's environmental issues. The concepts, facts, and issues presented in this
module and the course you are taking will be beneficial to you now and in the future
since environmental issues touch every aspect of your life.

This module is designed to enhance students understanding of what keeps us

and other Organism alive? Let’s continue for the further more explanations on our
topic.
 Discussion:

What keeps us and other Organism Alive?

Concept A: The four Major Components.

Atmosphere

Look up. Way up. The clouds you see in the sky, the wind that is moving the trees or
the flag in your school yard, even the sunshine you feel on your face—these are all a
result of Earth’s atmosphere.

Earth’s atmosphere stretches from the surface of the planet up to as far as 10,000
kilometers (6,214 miles) above. After that, the atmosphere blends into space. Not all
scientists agree where the actual upper boundary of the atmosphere is, but they can
agree that the bulk of the atmosphere is located close to Earth’s surface—up to a
distance of around eight to 15 kilometers (five to nine miles).

While oxygen is necessary for most life on Earth, the majority of Earth’s atmosphere
is not oxygen. Earth’s atmosphere is composed of about 78 percent nitrogen, 21
percent oxygen, 0.9 percent argon, and 0.1 percent other gases. Trace amounts of
carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and neon are some of the other gases that
make up the remaining 0.1 percent.

The atmosphere is divided into five different layers, based on temperature. The layer
closest to Earth’s surface is the troposphere, reaching from about seven and 15
kilometers (five to 10 miles) from the surface. The troposphere is thickest at the
equator, and much thinner at the North and South Poles. The majority of the mass of
the entire atmosphere is contained in the troposphere—between approximately 75
and 80 percent. Most of the water vapor in the atmosphere, along with dust and ash
particles, are found in the troposphere—explaining why most of Earth’s clouds are
located in this layer. Temperatures in the troposphere decrease with altitude.

The stratosphere is the next layer up from Earth’s surface. It reaches from the top of
the troposphere, which is called the tropopause, to an altitude of approximately 50
kilometers (30 miles). Temperatures in the stratosphere increase with altitude. A high
concentration of ozone, a molecule composed of three atoms of oxygen, makes up
the ozone layer of the stratosphere. This ozone absorbs some of the incoming solar
radiation, shielding life on Earth from potentially harmful ultraviolet (UV) light, and is
responsible for the temperature increase in altitude.

The top of the stratosphere is called the stratopause. Above that is the mesosphere,
which reaches as far as about 85 kilometers (53 miles) above Earth’s surface.
Temperatures decrease in the mesosphere with altitude. In fact, the coldest
temperatures in the atmosphere are near the top of the mesosphere—about -90°C (-
130°F). The atmosphere is thin here, but still thick enough so that meteors will burn
up as they pass through the mesosphere—creating what we see as “shooting stars.”
The upper boundary of the mesosphere is called the mesopause.

The thermosphere is located above the mesopause and reaches out to around 600
kilometers (372 miles). Not much is known about the thermosphere except those
temperatures increase with altitude. Solar radiation makes the upper regions of the
thermosphere very hot, reaching temperatures as high as 2,000°C (3,600°F).

The uppermost layer, that blends with what is considered to be outer space, is the
exosphere. The pull of Earth’s gravity is so small here that molecules of gas escape
into outer space.

Hydrosphere

A hydrosphere is the total amount of water on a planet. The hydrosphere includes

water that is on the surface of the planet, underground, and in the air. A planet's
hydrosphere can be liquid, vapor, or ice.

On Earth, liquid water exists on the surface in the form of oceans, lakes and rivers. It
also exists below ground—as groundwater, in wells and aquifers. Water vapor is
most visible as clouds and fog.

The frozen part of Earth's hydrosphere is made of ice: glaciers, ice caps and
icebergs. The frozen part of the hydrosphere has its own name, the cryosphere.

Water moves through the hydrosphere in a cycle. Water collects in clouds, then falls
to Earth in the form of rain or snow. This water collects in rivers, lakes and oceans.
Then it evaporates into the atmosphere to start the cycle all over again. This is called
the water cycle.
Geosphere

What is the most important part of our planet, the main reason Earth is different from
all the other planets in the solar system? If 10 different environmental scientists were
asked this question, they would probably give 10 different answers. Each scientist
might start with their favorite topic, from plate tectonics to rainforests and beyond.
Eventually, however, their collective description would probably touch on all the
major features and systems of our home planet. It turns out that no single feature is
more significant than the others—each one plays a vital role in the function and
sustainability of Earth’s system.

There are five main systems, or spheres, on Earth. The first system, the geosphere,
consists of the interior and surface of Earth, both of which are made up of rocks. The
limited part of the planet that can support living things comprises the second system;
these regions are referred to as the biosphere. In the third system are the areas of
Earth that are covered with enormous amounts of water, called the hydrosphere. The
atmosphere is the fourth system, and it is an envelope of gas that keeps the planet
warm and provides oxygen for breathing and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.
Finally, there is the fifth system, which contains huge quantities of ice at the poles
and elsewhere, constituting the cryosphere. All five of these enormous and complex
systems interact with one another to maintain the Earth as we know it.

When observed from space, one of Earth’s most obvious features is its abundant
water. Although liquid water is present around the globe, the vast majority of the
water on Earth, a whopping 96.5 percent, is saline (salty) and is not water humans,
and most other animals, can drink without processing. All of the liquid water on
Earth, both fresh and salt, makes up the hydrosphere, but it is also part of other
spheres. For instance, water vapor in the atmosphere is also considered to be part of
the hydrosphere. Ice, being frozen water, is part of the hydrosphere, but it is given its
own name, the cryosphere. Rivers and lakes may appear to be more common than
are glaciers and icebergs, but around three-quarters of all the fresh water on Earth is
locked up in the cryosphere.

Not only do the Earth systems overlap, they are also interconnected; what affects
one can affect another. When a parcel of air in the atmosphere becomes saturated
with water, precipitation, such as rain or snow, can fall to Earth’s surface. That
precipitation connects the hydrosphere with the geosphere by promoting erosion and
weathering, surface processes that slowly break down large rocks into smaller ones.
Over time, erosion and weathering change large pieces of rocks—or even mountains
—into sediments, like sand or mud. The cryosphere can also be involved in erosion,
as large glaciers scour bits of rock from the bedrock beneath them. The geosphere
includes all the rocks that make up Earth, from the partially melted rock under the
crust, to ancient, towering mountains, to grains of sand on a beach.

Both the geosphere and hydrosphere provide the habitat for the biosphere, a global
ecosystem that encompasses all the living things on Earth. The biosphere refers to
the relatively small part of Earth’s environment in which living things can survive. It
contains a wide range of organisms, including fungi, plants, and animals, that live
together as a community. Biologists and ecologists refer to this variety of life as
biodiversity. All the living things in an environment are called its biotic factors. The
biosphere also includes abiotic factors, the nonliving things that organisms require to
survive, such as water, air, and light.

The atmosphere—a mix of gases, mostly nitrogen and oxygen along with less
abundant gases like water vapor, ozone, carbon dioxide, and argon—is also
essential to life in the biosphere. Atmospheric gases work together to keep the global
temperatures within livable limits, shield the surface of Earth from harmful ultraviolet
radiation from the sun, and allow living things to thrive.

It is clear that all of Earth’s systems are deeply intertwined, but sometimes this
connection can lead to harmful, yet unintended, consequences. One specific
example of interaction between all the spheres is human fossil fuel consumption.
Deposits of these fuels formed millions of years ago, when plants and animals—all
part of the biosphere—died and decayed. At that point, their remains were
compressed within Earth to form coal, oil, and natural gas, thus becoming part of the
geosphere. Now, humans—members of the biosphere—burn these materials as fuel
to release the energy they contain. The combustion byproducts, such as carbon
dioxide, end up in the atmosphere. There, they contribute to global warming,
changing and stressing the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.

The many interactions between Earth’s systems are complex, and they are
happening constantly, though their effects are not always obvious. There are some
extremely dramatic examples of Earth’s systems interacting, like volcanic eruptions
and tsunamis, but there are also slow, nearly undetectable changes that alter ocean
chemistry, the content of our atmosphere, and the microbial biodiversity in soil. Each
part this planet, from Earth’s inner core to the top of the atmosphere, has a role in
making Earth home to billions of lifeforms.

Biosphere

The biosphere is made up of the parts of Earth where life exists. The biosphere
extends from the deepest root systems of trees, to the dark environment of ocean
trenches, to lush rainforests and high mountaintops.

Scientists describe Earth in terms of spheres. The solid surface layer of Earth is the
lithosphere. The atmosphere is the layer of air that stretches above the lithosphere.
The Earth’s water—on the surface, in the ground, and in the air—makes up the
hydrosphere.

Since life exists on the ground, in the air, and in the water, the biosphere overlaps all
these spheres. Although the biosphere measures about 20 kilometers (12 miles)
from top to bottom, almost all life exists between about 500 meters (1,640 feet)
below the ocean’s surface to about six kilometers (3.75 miles) above sea level.

Origin of the Biosphere

The biosphere has existed for about 3.5 billion years. The biosphere’s earliest life-
forms, called prokaryotes, survived without oxygen. Ancient prokaryotes included
single-celled organisms such as bacteria and archaea.

Some prokaryotes developed a unique chemical process. They were able to use
sunlight to make simple sugars and oxygen out of water and carbon dioxide, a
process called photosynthesis. These photosynthetic organisms were so plentiful
that they changed the biosphere. Over a long period of time, the atmosphere
developed a mix of oxygen and other gases that could sustain new forms of life.

The addition of oxygen to the biosphere allowed more complex life-forms to evolve.
Millions of different plants and other photosynthetic species developed. Animals,
which consume plants (and other animals) evolved. Bacteria and other organisms
evolved to decompose, or break down, dead animals and plants.

The biosphere benefits from this food web. The remains of dead plants and animals
release nutrients into the soil and ocean. These nutrients are reabsorbed by growing
plants. This exchange of food and energy makes the biosphere a self-supporting and
self-regulating system.

The biosphere is sometimes thought of as one large ecosystem—a complex

community of living and nonliving things functioning as a single unit. More often,
however, the biosphere is described as having many ecosystems.

Biosphere Reserves

People play an important part in maintaining the flow of energy in the biosphere.
Sometimes, however, people disrupt the flow. For example, in the atmosphere,
oxygen levels decrease and carbon dioxide levels increase when people clear
forests or burn fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Oil spills and industrial wastes
threaten life in the hydrosphere. The future of the biosphere will depend on how
people interact with other living things within the zone of life.

In the early 1970s, the United Nations established a project called Man and the
Biosphere Programme (MAB), which promotes sustainable development. A network
of biosphere reserves exists to establish a working, balanced relationship between
people and the natural world.

Currently, there are 563 biosphere reserves all over the world. The first biosphere
reserve was established in Yangambi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Yangambi, in
the fertile Congo River Basin, has 32,000 species of trees and such endemic species
as forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and red river hogs (Potamochoerus porcus).
The biosphere reserve at Yangambi supports activities such as sustainable
agriculture, hunting, and mining.
Concept B: Life is sustained by the flow of energy from the sun through the
biosphere, the cycling of nutrients within the biosphere, and gravity.

Three Factors Sustain Life on Earth

• One-way flow of high-quality energy: Sun → plants → living things → environment

as heat → radiation to space

Energy flow in ecosystem

All living things need energy.

Some biotic factors get their energy from the sun. Others eat other biotic factors

As a result, energy flows in ecosystems.

This flow of energy can be represented with food chains and food webs.

For most ecosystems, the ultimate energy source is the sun

As you move from one organism to another you move up trophic levels.

For example, moving from the mollusk to the white perch would be a trophic level

Producers which use photosynthesis to create their energy are a large source of
energy in an ecosystem. Plants and algae are examples of producers.

As consumers eat these producers, carbon bonds are broken and energy is released
and this energy is transferred from one level to another.
As you move from one trophic level to another you lose 90 percent of the energy.

This is known as the 10 percent rule.

For example, if you start with 1000 Joule and a grasshopper eats the plants only 10
Joule will be transferred, and a bird eats the insect on 1 Joule will be transferred

Where does this energy go?

Most of the energy is lost as heat

The energy flow in an ecosystem follows the laws of thermodynamic

The first law states that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an
isolated system however it can be converted from one form to another

The second law states that this energy conversion is never completely efficient.

As a result, most energy is lost as heat.

So there you go. The energy flow in an ecosystem

• Cycling of nutrients through parts of the biosphere

Nutrient cycling
The cells of all organisms are made up primarily of six major elements that occur in
similar proportions in all life-forms. These elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur—form the core protoplasm of organisms, and the
first four of these elements make up about 99 percent of the mass of most cells.
Additional elements, however, are also essential to the growth of organisms.
Calcium and other elements help to form cellular support structures such as shells,
internal or external skeletons, and cell walls. Chlorophyll molecules, which allow
photosynthetic plants to convert solar energy into chemical energy, are chains of
carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen compounds built around a magnesium ion.
Altogether, 16 elements are found in all organisms; another eight elements are found
in some organisms but not in others.

These bio elements combine with one another to form a wide variety of chemical
compounds. They occur in organisms in higher proportions than they do in the
environment because organisms capture them, concentrating and combining them in
various ways in their cells, and release them during metabolism and death. As a
result, these essential nutrients alternate between inorganic and organic states as
they rotate through their respective biogeochemical cycles. These cycles can include
all or part of the following: the atmosphere, which is made up largely of gases
including water vapor; the lithosphere, which encompasses the soil and the entire
solid crust of Earth; and the hydrosphere, which includes lakes, rivers, and oceans.

A portion of the elements are bound up in limestone and in the minerals of other
rocks and are unavailable to organisms. The slow processes of weathering and
erosion eventually release these elements to enter the cycle. For most of the major
nutrients, however, organisms not only intercept the elements moving through the
biosphere, but they actually drive the biogeochemical cycles (Figure 3).

The movement of nutrients through the biosphere is different from the transfer of
energy because, whereas energy flows through the biosphere and cannot be reused,
elements are recycled. The same atoms of carbon or nitrogen may, over the course
of eons, move repeatedly between organisms, the atmosphere, the soil, and the
oceans. Carbon released as carbon dioxide by an animal may remain in the
atmosphere for 5 or 10 years before being taken up by another organism, or it may
cycle almost immediately back into a neighboring plant and be used during
photosynthesis

• Gravity holds earth’s atmosphere

Our atmosphere is a mixture of gases that surround Earth. It is kept in place by the
pull of Earth's gravity. If Earth was a much smaller planet, like Mercury or Pluto, its
gravity would be to weak to hold a large atmosphere.
Conclusion:

Atmosphere - A thin spherical envelope of gasses surrounding the earth's surface.

Troposphere - Is the atmospheres inner layer, that contains the air that we breath,
water vapor, and greenhouse gases.

Stratosphere - Ozone layer.

Hydrosphere - consists of all the water on or near the earth’s surface.

Geosphere - consists of the earth’s Core, Mantle, and Crust.

Biosphere - Where life is found. Consists of all the parts of the atmosphere,
Hydrosphere, and Geosphere

greenhouse gases -water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane.-Absorbs and release
energy that warms the lower atmosphere.

Three Factors Sustain the Earth's Life

1) One-way flow of high-quality energy

2) The cycling of nutrients

3) Gravity

1) One-way flow of high-quality energy - from the sun, through living things in their
feeding interactions, into the environment as low-quality energy, and back into space
as heat.

2) The cycling of nutrients - (The atoms, ions, and molecules needed for survival by
living organisms) through parts of the biosphere.

3) Gravity - which allows the planet to hold onto its atmosphere and helps to enable
the movement and cycling of chemicals through the air, water, soil, and organisms.
References:

National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. (1996 – 2023) National

Geographic Society.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/atmosphere

National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. (1996 – 2023) National

Geographic Society.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/hydrosphere

National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. (1996 – 2023) National

Geographic Society.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/earths-systems

National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. (1996 – 2023) National

Geographic Society.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/biosphere

MooMoo Math and Science ( September 4. 2017) One-way flow of high-quality

energy

https://www.youtube.com/@MooMooMath

JOHN P. RAFFERTY (2006) Cycling of nutrients through parts of the biosphere

https://www.britannica.com/summary/biosphere