Earth as a System

 Learning Objectives:

1. Differentiate the spheres of the Earth

2. Appreciate the check and balance
systems of nature
3. Infer how much energy is transferred
from one trophic level to another
4. Describe how matter and energy flow
through the ecosystems using food
chains and food webs
Scope of the Environment
 Lithosphere
- geosphere
- composed of all the planet’s rock, soil, and minerals
- includes not only the solid part, but also the molten
rock in the Earth's interior
 Hydrosphere
- contains all of Earth's water in all of its phases -
solid,
liquid, and gaseous.
- composed of Earth's saltwater, freshwater, glaciers,
the permafrost, and the moisture in the atmosphere.
 Atmosphere
- the layer of gases that surround Earth
- absorb solar radiation that is harmful to living organisms and reflect it
back to outer space
- contains several gases that are essential to life like carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen.
 Biosphere
- harbors all the living things in the planet
- This sphere is very much dependent on all the other three systems
- Organisms need the gases from the atmosphere, the water from the
hydrosphere, and the nutrients and minerals from the lithosphere.
Matter, Energy and
Life
Conservation of Matter and Energy
 Law of Conservation of Matter

• Matter is neither created nor destroyed.

• It is recycled and used as materials to be
converted to another form.
 First Law of Thermodynamics

• Energy is likewise conserved.

• It is neither created nor destroyed.
• It is only converted from one form to another.
 Second Law of Thermodynamics
• It simply states that in a system that undergoes
successive energy transfer or transformation,
some usable energy is lost in each step.
• Think of it as an energy "cost" for the
transformation process. Thus, with every energy
transfer process, you end up with less usable
energy than when you started.
 Energy Flow Through Ecosystems
• A species refers to organisms of the same kind that are able to
produce fertile offsprings.
• A group of species living together in one habitat is called a
population.
• Populations of different organisms interacting in this particular
habitat is referred to as a biological community, or simply,
community.
• Ecosystems, or ecological systems, consist of a biological
community interacting with its physical environment. It is composed
of both the living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) things in a
particular area.
 Energy Flow Through Ecosystems
• The trophic levels express an organism's feeding status in an
ecosystem.
• Energy from the sun is absorbed by producers, also called
autotrophs, organisms that are capable of creating their own food.
These producers build their biological matter from the inorganic
nutrients in the soil. Organisms that produce food from light are
called photoautotrophs while those that utilize chemical compounds
when light is absent are called chemoautotrophs.
 Energy Flow Through Ecosystems
• Consumers feed on these producers, absorbing both their
matter and energy.
• When these organisms die, they are broken down by
decomposers and their organic matter are deposited in
their habitat as part of the inorganic nutrient pool, waiting
to be utilized again by the producers.
• Consumers and decomposers are classified as
heterotrophs as they need to consume the organic matter
of other organisms to survive.
Energy Flow Through Ecosystems
 Food Chain and Food Web
• A food chain represents a single series of
process of linked feeding relationships. It
graphically shows what eats what in an
ecosystem.
• A food web is basically an interconnection of
different food chains.
• Primary consumers are herbivores or plant eaters.
• The secondary consumers feed on the primary
consumers. They can be carnivores (meat eaters) or
omnivores (plant and meat eaters).
• The tertiary, or quaternary, consumers are usually the top
carnivore in an ecosystem. The top carnivores are also
called apex predators.
• Decomposers break down the organic matter from all
these organisms when they die and return these to the
soil to be reused as inorganic nutrients for the producers.
Common examples of decomposers are fungi and
bacteria.
Thank you!!!