Lecture 4

Abiotic Components

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 ECOSYSTEM

-A biological community (biotic factors) plus all the abiotic factors

influencing that community
Components of ecosystem

Biotic components Abiotic components

- plants --- producer : soils
- animals --- consumer : water
: herbivores : air
: smaller carnivores : nutrients
: Larger carnivores
- microbes
: fungi, bacteria Habitat

Community
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 Abiotic Components
abiotic components (also known as abiotic
factors) are non-living chemical and physical
factors in the environment, which affect
ecosystems.
Abiotic phenomena underlie all of biology.

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 Abiotic Components
Biologically, can be classified as,
- light or more generally radiation,
- temperature,
- water,
- the chemical surrounding composed of the
terrestrial atmospheric gases,
- as well as soil

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 Abiotic Components
Macroscopic climate each of the abiotic
components
In marine and terrestrial environment other
factors such as pressure and waves also
influences the other abiotic factors

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 Effect of Light on Plants

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 Light on Plants Growth
The vegetative and flowering stages of growth
are directly influenced by light.
Artificial lights allow for year-round growth
and quick production, but the intensity and
nutrients that natural sunlight offers can never
truly be duplicated.

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 Light on Plants Growth
Without light, we would not have green plant
life, vegetable gardens would not produce and
flowers would not bloom.
Light gives food and energy to plants through
photosynthesis and makes everything flourish.
It is an essential part of all life on Earth.
The quality, intensity, and duration of light
directly impact plant growth.

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 Light Quality
Light quality refers to the color or wavelength
reaching the plant's surface
A prism (or raindrops) can divide sunlight into
respective colors of red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo and violet.

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 Rainbow
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 Light Quality
Red and blue have the greatest impact on
plant growth.
Green light is least effective (the reflection of
green light gives the green color to plants).
Blue light is primarily responsible for
vegetative leaf growth.
Red light, when combined with blue light,
encourages flowering.

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 Figure 1. Relative efficiency of various light
colors in photosynthesis
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Photosynthesis depends upon the absorption
of light by pigments in the leaves of plants.
The most important of these is chlorophyll-a
but there are several accessory pigments that
also contribute.
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 Light is an Important Abiotic Factors
Under natural conditions light is controlled by
- topography,
- cloudiness,
- vegetation cover,
- seasonal patterns, like less daylight in the
winter.

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 Why Light is an Important Abiotic
Factors

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