Learning Outcomes

After studying this chapter, you should be able to answer the following
questions:

■What are systems, and how do feedback loops affect them?

■Explain the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
■Ecologists say there is no “away” to throw things, and that everything
in the universe tends to slow down and fall apart. What do they mean?
• Explain the processes of photosynthesis and respiration.
• What qualities make water so unique and essential for life as we
know it?
• Why are big, fierce animals rare?
• How and why do elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphate, and
sulfur cycle through ecosystems?
What is system?
• Is a network of interdependent components and processes, with
materials and energy flowing from one component of the system to
another.
Open systems are those that receive inputs from their
surroundings and produce outputs that leave the system. Almost all
natural systems are open systems.
Closed system exchanges no energy or matter with its
surroundings
Throughput is a term we can use to describe the energy and
matter that flow into, through, and out of a system.
CASE STUDY
Working to Rescue an Ecosystem

• All living things need nutrients to grow. One of the key nutrients is
phosphorus.
• Plants use phosphorus for energy transfer in photosynthesis, and the
element is an essential part of all proteins, cells, oils, starches, and
sugars—many of which we enjoy eating.
• this common chemical element is also costing Florida about half a
billion dollars, as the state tries to rescue the Everglades ecosystem
and the Everglades National Park from ecological disaster
• The Everglades are one of the United States’ most spectacular
wetlands.
• Due to the intervention of man the Everglades is currently on its
tipping point.
Problem Statement
• The Everglades is a jewel among America’s national parks, but it is
also a struggling ecosystem due to intervention of man on its system.
OBJECTIVES
• General Objective:
To restore some of the natural flow of water supplies of the ecosystem of
Everglades.
• Specific Objective:
• Managing nutrients and water in the Everglades is an effort to restore a
stable system.
CAUSES OF THRESHOLD IN EVERGLADES

Pollution

Flood Control
Systems Describe Interactions
• Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs
as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop.
Positive feedback This increasing response, where an increase in
the state variable leads to further increases in the same variable.
Negative feedback is a type of regulation in biological systems in
which the end product of a process in turn reduces the stimulus of that
same process.
Example of Feedback