Topic 3: Energy fixation and

flow in ecosystems

Collins Bulafu (PMB) 2024

 Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to do the following:

 Describe how organisms acquire energy in a food web and in associated
food chains
 Explain how the efficiency of energy transfers between trophic levels
affects ecosystem structure and dynamics
 Discuss trophic levels and how ecological pyramids are used to model
them
 Outline
 Source of energy
 How is energy is lost
 How organisms acquire energy
 Food chains and food webs
 Efficiency of energy transfer
 Ecological pyramids
 Source of energy and
energy loss

 Energy that supports all biological activities

ultimately come from the sun.
 Living organisms would not be able to assemble
macromolecules (proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and
complex carbohydrates) from their monomeric
subunits without a constant energy input
 Of all the sun’s energy output, only ½ or even less
reaches the earth.
 Much of it is depleted as it passes through the
atmosphere, especially the troposphere (lower
atmosphere)
Source of energy and energy loss

 Reflection (total of c.42%)

 from clouds (c.33%)
 and dust (c.9%)
 Absorption by O3, O2, water vapor and Carbonic acid
 Diffuse scattering by air molecules and small particles
 The last two (ii & iii) contribute a total of c.10%
 which depends on vegetation cover
 colour of the surface
Source of energy and energy loss

 c.48% of the total solar output reaches

the earth.
 Even then the earth’s surface reflects
some through Albedo (the reflective
power of the earth’s surface)
 which depends on vegetation cover
 colour of the surface (snow and Ice have
higher albedo
Source: NOAA JPSS
 How organisms acquire energy
 Photosynthesis
 Chemosynthesis
 Consumption and digestion of other organisms
 How organisms acquire energy

 A fraction of the solar radiation (energy) is fixation through PhS

(EQ) by autotrophs (chemosynthesis-chemoautotrophs-read)
 The amount of energy fixed by photoautotrophs in a given area is
called Gross Primary Production (GPP).
 Examples include plants, algae and some bacteria
 Of this GPP, some is used by the autotrophs for respiration (R).
 The balance is what is Net Primary Production (NPP).
 How organisms acquire energy
 It is the NPP which then gets available to the
herbivores.
 NPP is therefore the amount of energy store in the
autotrophs in excess of their respiratory needs
 Autotrophs make life possible
 Methods of measuring primary production (read)
 Productivity within trophic levels
Productivity within an ecosystem
 Defined as the percentage of energy entering the ecosystem incorporated
into biomass in a particular trophic level.
 Biomass is the total mass, in a unit area at the time of measurement, of
living or previously living organisms within a trophic level.
 Ecosystems have characteristic amounts of biomass at each trophic level.
 The rate at which photosynthetic primary producers incorporate energy from
the sun is called gross primary productivity.
 Food chains and food webs
 In ecology, a food chain is a linear sequence of organisms
through which nutrients and energy pass:
 primary producers, consumers, and higher-level consumers are
used to describe ecosystem structure and dynamics.
 There is a single path through the chain.
 Each organism in a food chain occupies what is called a
trophic level.
 Depending on their role as producers or consumers,
species or groups of species can be assigned to various
trophic levels.
 Food chains and food webs

 In many ecosystems, the bottom of the food chain consists of photosynthetic

organisms (plants and/or phytoplankton), which are called primary producers.
 The organisms that consume the primary producers are herbivores: the primary
consumers.
 Secondary consumers are usually carnivores that eat the primary consumers.
 Tertiary consumers are carnivores that eat other carnivores. Higher-level
consumers feed on the next lower tropic levels, and so on, up to the organisms
at the top of the food chain: the apex consumers.
 Food chains
 One major factor that limits the length of food chains is
energy.
 Energy is lost as heat between each trophic level due
to the second law of thermodynamics.
 Thus, after a limited number of trophic energy
transfers, the amount of energy remaining in the food
chain may not be great enough to support viable
populations at yet a higher trophic level.
 The environmental stability theory
 The number of links vary from 2-5
 Types of food chains
 Grazing
 Browsing
 Detritus
 Examples of each from your local area (read)
 Limitation of food chains

 Read
 Food web

 Matrix of food chains

 A food web is a graphic representation of a holistic, nonlinear web
of primary producers, primary consumers, and higher-level
consumers used to describe ecosystem structure and dynamics
 Construct one using local examples
 Two types
 Grazing food web
 Detrital food web
 Food webs and biomagnification???
 Ecological efficiency
 As energy flows from primary producers through the various trophic levels, the
ecosystem loses large amounts of energy. (Transfer efficiency)
 The measurement of energy transfer efficiency between two successive trophic
levels is termed the trophic level transfer efficiency (TLTE)
 The main reason for this loss is the second law of thermodynamics, which
states that whenever energy is converted from one form to another, there is a
tendency toward disorder (entropy) in the system.
 In biologic systems, this energy takes the form of metabolic heat, which is lost
when the organisms consume other organisms
TLTE
 Conceptual models

 Calculate the Trophic efficiency of primary consumers,

secondary consumers and tertiary consumers

Other parameters of interest:

 Net production efficiency given as
 NPE=net consumer productivity/assimilation x100 i.e. a
measure of how efficiency organisms at a given level
incorporate energy they receive into biomass.
 NPE and food supply
 In general, cold-blooded animals (ectotherms) use less of the energy than
warm-blooded animals (endotherms).
 The inefficiency of energy use by warm-blooded animals has broad
implications for the world's food supply
 Perspective: it costs about $0.01 to produce 1000 dietary calories (kcal) of
corn or soybeans, but approximately $0.19 to produce a similar number of
calories growing cattle for beef consumption
 Ecological pyramids

 Pyramid of numbers
 Pyramid of biomass
 Pyramid of energy