LIFE ON EARTH

Prepared By:
SUKHWINDER SINGH
 Content
• Biosphere
• Ecological system
• Types of ecosystems
• Food chain
• Food web
• Types of biomes
• Aquatic ecosystem
• Altitudinal biomes
• Water Cycle
• Carbon Cycle
• Bio geo chemical Cycle
• Oxygen Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle
• Ecological balance
 Biosphere
• Biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It
can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a
closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation)
and self-regulating system. From the broadest
biophysiological point of view, the biosphere is
the global ecological system integrating all living
beings and their relationships, including their
interaction with the elements of the lithosphere,
hydrosphere and atmosphere. The biosphere is
postulated to have evolved, beginning through a
process of biogenesis or biopoesis, at least some
3.5 billion years ago.
• In a broader sense; biospheres are any closed,
self-regulating systems containing ecosystems;
including artificial ones such as Biosphere 2 and
BIOS-3; and, potentially, ones on other planets or
moons.
 Ecological system
• An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of
all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all
the nonliving, physical components of the environment
with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil,
water, and sunlight. It is all the organisms in a given
area, along with the nonliving (abiotic) factors with
which they interact; a biological community and its
physical environment.
• The entire array of organisms inhabiting a particular
ecosystem is called a community. In a typical
ecosystem, plants and other photosynthetic organisms
are the producers that provide the food. Ecosystems
can be permanent or temporary. Ecosystems usually
form a number of food webs.
• Ecosystems are functional units consisting of living
things in a given area, non-living chemical and physical
factors of their environment, linked together through
nutrient cycle and energy flow.
 Types of Ecosystems
Natural Ecosystems
These operate by themselves under natural conditions
without any major interference by man. Based upon the
particular kind of habitat, these are further divided as:
1. Terrestrial, e.g. forest, grassland, desert
2. Aquatic which is further distinguished as:
A. freshwater which may be Iotic (spring, stream or
river) or lentic (lake, pond, pools, ditch, swamp,
etc.)
B. Marine, e.g. sea or ocean (deep bodies) and
estuary (shallow bodies).
Artificial Ecosystems
They are also called man-made or man-engineered ecosystems.
They are maintained artificially by man where, by addition of
energy and planned manipulation, natural balance is disturbed
regularly, e.g. croplands such as sugarcane, maize, wheat, rice-
fields; orchards, gardens, villages, cities, dams, aquarium and
manned spaceship.
 Food chain
• Food chains and food webs are representations of the predator-
prey relationships between species within an ecosystem or
habitat.
• Many chain and web models can be applicable depending on
habitat or environmental factors. Every known food chain has a
base made of autotrophs, organisms able to manufacture their
own food (e.g. plants, chemotrophs).
• In nearly all food chains, solar energy is input into the system as
light and heat, utilized by autotrophs (i.e., producers) in a process
called photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is reduced (gains electrons)
by being combined with water (a source of hydrogen atoms),
producing glucose. Water splitting produces hydrogen, but is a
nonspontaneous (endergonic) reaction requiring energy from the
sun. Carbon dioxide and water, both stable, oxidized compounds,
are low in energy, but glucose, a high-energy compound and good
electron donor, is capable of storing the solar energy. This energy
is expended for cellular processes, growth, and development. The
plant sugars are polymerized for storage as long-chain
carbohydrates, including other sugars, starch, and cellulose.
 Food web
• A food web is a graphical description of feeding
relationships among species in an ecological community,
that is, of who eats whom (Fig. 1). It is also a means of
showing how energy and materials (e.g., carbon) flow
through a community of species as a result of these
feeding relationships. Typically, species are connected by
lines or arrows called "links", and the species are
sometimes referred to as "nodes" in food web diagrams.
• The pioneering animal ecologist Charles Elton (1927)
introduced the concept of the food web (which he called
food cycle) to general ecological science. As he described
it: "The herbivores are usually preyed upon by carnivores,
which get the energy of the sunlight at third-hand, and
these again may be preyed upon by other carnivores, and
so on, until we reach an animal which has no enemies, and
which forms, as it were, a terminus on this food cycle.
There are, in fact, chains of animals linked together by
food, and all dependent in the long run upon plants. We
refer to these as 'food-chains', and to all the food chains in
a community as the 'food-cycle.
 Types of biomes
• Biomes are climatically and geographically
defined as similar climatic conditions on the
Earth, such as communities of plants,
animals, and soil organisms,[1] and are often
referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the
earth have more or less the same kind of
abiotic and biotic factors spread over a large
area creating a typical ecosystem over that
area. The four major types of biomes are
1. Aquatic
2. Grasslands
3. Forests
4. Desert
 Aquatic ecosystem
• An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem located in a body of
water. Communities of organisms that are dependent on
each other and on their environment live in aquatic
ecosystems. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are
marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. The various
types:
– Marine.
– Freshwater.
• Functions: Aquatic ecosystems perform many important
environmental functions. For example, they recycle
nutrients, purify water, attenuate floods, recharge ground
water and provide habitats for wildlife.[5] Aquatic
ecosystems are also used for human recreation, and are very
important to the tourism industry, especially in coastal
regions.
 Altitudinal biomes
• On the basis of broad climatic regimes only four types of
terrestrial biomes are present - tropical rain forests, taiga, tundra
and temperate deciduous. All these latitudinal biomes can be
observed on high mountain ranges. The four latitudinal biomes
are telescoped into altitudinal biomes each extending a few 100
meters in height from base to below the snow line.
• Basal part posses tropical forest and is called terrain in India.
High mountains growing in warm temperature areas do not have
tropical forests at the base. Low altitude mountains devoid of
snow caps do not have tundra vegetation. So the number of
biomes found on mountains depend upon its latitude and height.
• Alpine tundra is the highest altitudinal biome which occurs near
the top of high mountains having permanent snow e.g.
Himalayas. It is treeless region and lie above timberline.
• Of lower region become tiny shrubs - Junipers, Rhododendron
plants usually have spreading or cushion habit and often grows
in protected areas. Alpine tundra differ from arctic tundra in
being slopy, well drain with the little peat or bog, more
herbaceous and dwarfed Trees.
 Water cycle
• The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or H2O cycle, describes
the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the
Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapour, and ice at various
places in the water cycle. Although the balance of water on Earth remains
fairly constant over time, individual water molecules can come and go. The
water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or
from the ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of
evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface
flow. In so doing, the water goes through different phases: liquid, solid, and
gas.
• The hydrologic cycle also involves the exchange of heat energy, which leads
to temperature changes. For instance, in the process of evaporation, water
takes up energy from the surroundings and cools the environment.
Conversely, in the process of condensation, water releases energy to its
surroundings, warming the environment.
• The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in oceans and seas.
Water evaporates as water vapor into the air. Ice and snow can sublimate
directly into water vapor. Evapotranspiration is water transpired from plants
and evaporated from the soil. Rising air currents take the vapor up into the
atmosphere where cooler temperatures cause it to condense into clouds.
• Air currents move water vapor around the globe, cloud particles collide,
grow, and fall out of the sky as precipitation. Some precipitation falls as
snow or hail, and can accumulate as ice caps and glaciers, which can store
frozen water for thousands of years.
 Carbon Cycle
• The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is
exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere,
hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth. It is one of the most
important cycles of the earth and allows for carbon to be recycled
and reused throughout the biosphere and all of its organisms. The
carbon cycle was initially discovered by Joseph Priestley and
Antoine Lavoisier, and popularized by Humphry Davy. It is now
usually thought of as including the following major reservoirs of
carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange:
• The atmosphere
• The terrestrial biosphere, which is usually defined to include fresh
water systems and non-living organic material, such as soil carbon.
• The oceans, including dissolved inorganic carbon and living and
non-living marine biota,
• The sediments including fossil fuels.
• The Earth's interior, carbon from the Earth's mantle and crust is
released to the atmosphere and hydrosphere by volcanoes and
geothermal systems.
 Biogeochemical Cycle
• In ecology and Earth science, a biogeochemical cycle
or nutrient cycle is a pathway by which a chemical
element or molecule moves through both biotic
(biosphere) and abiotic (lithosphere, atmosphere, and
hydrosphere) compartments of Earth. In effect, the
element is recycled, although in some cycles there
may be places (called reservoirs) where the element
is accumulated or held for a long period of time (such
as an ocean or lake for water). Water, for example, is
always recycled through the water cycle, as shown in
the diagram. The water undergoes evaporation,
condensation, and precipitation, falling back to Earth
clean and fresh. Elements, chemical compounds, and
other forms of matter are passed from one organism
to another and from one part of the biosphere to
another through the biogeochemical cycles.
• All chemical elements occurring in organisms are part
of biogeochemical cycles. In addition to being a part
of living organisms, these chemical elements also
cycle through abiotic factors of ecosystems such as
water (hydrosphere), land (lithosphere), and the air
(atmosphere).
 Oxygen Cycle
• The Oxygen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that
describes the movement of oxygen within its three main
reservoirs: the atmosphere (air), the total content of
biological matter within the biosphere (the global sum
of all ecosystems), and the lithosphere (Earth's crust).
• Failures in the oxygen cycle within the hydrosphere (the
combined mass of water found on, under, and over the
surface of a planet) can result in the development of
hypoxic zones. The main driving factor of the oxygen
cycle is photosynthesis, which is responsible for the
modern Earth's atmosphere and life.
• By far the largest reservoir of Earth's oxygen is within
the silicate and oxide minerals of the crust and mantle
(99.5%). Only a small portion has been released as free
oxygen to the biosphere (0.01%) and atmosphere
(0.36%). The main source of atmospheric oxygen is
photosynthesis, which produces sugars and oxygen from
carbon dioxide and water.
 Nitrogen Cycle
• The nitrogen cycle is the process by which nitrogen is
converted between its various chemical forms. This
transformation can be carried out via both biological
and non-biological processes. Important processes in
the nitrogen cycle include fixation, mineralization,
nitrification, and denitrification.
• The majority of Earth's atmosphere (approximately
78%) is nitrogen, making it the largest pool of nitrogen.
However, atmospheric nitrogen is unavailable for
biological use, leading to a scarcity of usable nitrogen
in many types of ecosystems.
• The nitrogen cycle is of particular interest to ecologists
because nitrogen availability can affect the rate of key
ecosystem processes, including primary production and
decomposition.
• Human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, use of
artificial nitrogen fertilizers, and release of nitrogen in
wastewater have dramatically altered the global
nitrogen cycle.
 Ecological Balance
• Ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living
organisms to each other and their surroundings.
Ecosystems are defined by a web, community, or
network of individuals that arrange into a self-
organized and complex hierarchy of pattern and
process.
• Ecosystems create a biophysical feedback between
living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) components of
an environment that generates and regulates the
biogeochemical cycles of the planet. Ecosystems
provide goods and services that sustain human
societies and general well-being. Ecosystems are
sustained by biodiversity within them.
• Biodiversity is the full-scale of life and its processes,
including genes, species and ecosystems forming
lineages that integrate into a complex and
regenerative spatial arrangement of types, forms,
and interactions.
 Ecological HotSpot of world
• The concept of biodiversity hotspots was originated
by Norman Myers in two articles in “The
Environmentalist” (1988[1] & 1990[2]), revised after
thorough analysis by Myers and others in “Hotspots:
Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered
Terrestrial Ecoregions”. To qualify as a biodiversity
hotspot on Myers 2000 edition of the hotspot-map,
a region must meet two strict criteria: it must
contain at least 0.5% or 1,500 species of vascular
plants as endemics, and it has to have lost at least
70% of its primary vegetation.
• Around the world, at least 25 areas qualify under
this definition, with nine others possible candidates.
These sites support nearly 60% of the world's plant,
bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species, with
a very high share of endemic species.