Download Energy Flow through an Ecosystem

Energy Flow through an
Ecosystem
Review of Ecosystem
• “…is a community of living and non-living things that
work together” (Ecosystems).
• Abiotic: non-living/never been alive
• Biotic: living or once was living
• Three categories of living organisms
– Producer
– Consumer
– Decomposer
• Major parts of an ecosystem
– Soil, atmosphere, heat and light, water, and living
organisms
New Terms
• Population: same species
• Community: made up of one to many species
living in the same location.
• Limiting resource: what the population needs
to live
• Carrying capacity: largest population that can
be supported by the limiting resource
Energy Budget
• Gross productivity: eat or take in
• Respiration: energy lost (usually through heat)
• Net productivity: the difference between gross
and respiration
– Also known as biomass
Start of energy
• How does energy enter an ecosystem?
– Plants = Photosynthesis
– Balance equation
• 6CO2 + 6H2O
Sunlight
C6H12O6 (food)+ 6O2
• What are plants called? Why are they called
that?
– Producers because they make their own food
Flow of Energy through Organisms
• Food web/chain
– Determines the flow of energy
• Producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary
consumers
– Energy is lost in the form of heat
• Trophic levels
– Energy levels
– Link to other levels through food webs
– Only 10% of energy is transferred to the next level
• Example: if you start out with 100, then the next level only get 10%
of that so it will have 10. The next level gets only 10% of the 10, so
it will have 1. The next level would receive .10, then .01, then
.001, and so on.
What is the same and what is
different?