essay on ecology and ecosystem

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscapes, work together to form a bubble of life.

Biology, Ecology, Earth Science, Meteorology, Geography, Human Geography, Physical Geography

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An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants , animals , and other organisms , as well as weather and landscape , work together to form a bubble of life. Ecosystems contain biotic or living, parts, as well as a biotic factors , or nonliving parts. Biotic factors include plants , animals , and other organisms . A biotic factors include rocks , temperature , and humidity . Every factor in an ecosystem depends on every other factor, either directly or indirectly. A change in the temperature of an ecosystem will often affect what plants will grow there, for instance. Animals that depend on plants for food and shelter will have to adapt to the changes, move to another ecosystem , or perish . Ecosystems can be very large or very small. Tide pools , the ponds left by the ocean as the tide goes out, are complete, tiny ecosystems . Tide pools contain seaweed , a kind of algae , which uses photosynthesis to create food . Herbivores such as abalone eat the seaweed . Carnivores such as sea stars eat other animals in the tide pool , such as clams or mussels . Tide pools depend on the changing level of ocean water. Some organisms , such as seaweed , thrive in an aquatic environment, when the tide is in and the pool is full. Other organisms , such as hermit crabs , cannot live underwater and depend on the shallow pools left by low tides . In this way, the biotic parts of the ecosystem depend on a biotic factors . The whole surface of Earth is a series of connected ecosystems . Ecosystems are often connected in a larger biome . Biomes are large sections of land, sea, or atmosphere. Forests , ponds , reefs , and tundra are all types of biomes , for example. They're organized very generally, based on the types of plants and animals that live in them. Within each forest , each pond , each reef , or each section of tundra , you'll find many different ecosystems . The biome of the Sahara Desert , for instance, includes a wide variety of ecosystems . The arid climate and hot weather characterize the biome . Within the Sahara are oasis ecosystems , which have date palm trees, freshwater , and animals such as crocodiles . The Sahara also has dune ecosystems , with the changing landscape determined by the wind . Organisms in these ecosystems , such as snakes or scorpions , must be able to survive in sand dunes for long periods of time. The Sahara even includes a marine environment, where the Atlantic Ocean creates cool fogs on the Northwest African coast. Shrubs and animals that feed on small trees, such as goats , live in this Sahara ecosystem . Even similar-sounding biomes could have completely different ecosystems . The biome of the Sahara Desert , for instance, is very different from the biome of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and China. The Gobi is a cold desert , with frequent snowfall and freezing temperatures . Unlike the Sahara, the Gobi has ecosystems based not in sand , but kilometers of bare rock . Some grasses are able to grow in the cold, dry climate . As a result, these Gobi ecosystems have grazing animals such as gazelles and even takhi , an endangered species of wild horse. Even the cold desert ecosystems of the Gobi are distinct from the freezing desert ecosystems of Antarctica. Antarcticas thick ice sheet covers a continent made almost entirely of dry, bare rock . Only a few mosses grow in this desert ecosystem , supporting only a few birds, such as skuas . Threats to Ecosystems For thou sands of years, people have interacted with ecosystems . Many cultures developed around nearby ecosystems . Many Native American tribes of North Americas Great Plains developed a complex lifestyle based on the native plants and animals of plains ecosystems , for instance. Bison , a large grazing animal native to the Great Plains , became the most important biotic factor in many Plains Indians cultures , such as the Lakota or Kiowa . Bison are sometimes mistakenly called buffalo. These tribes used buffalo hides for shelter and clothing, buffalo meat for food , and buffalo horn for tools. The tallgrass prairie of the Great Plains supported bison herds , which tribes followed throughout the year.

As human populations have grown, however, people have overtaken many ecosystems . The tall grass prairie of the Great Plains , for instance, became farmland . As the ecosystem shrunk, fewer bison could survive . Today, a few herds survive in protected ecosystems such as Yellowstone National Park. In the tropical rain forest ecosystems surrounding the Amazon River in South America, a similar situation is taking place. The Amazon rain forest includes hundreds of ecosystems , including canopies, understories, and forest floors. These ecosystems support vast food webs . Canopies are ecosystems at the top of the rainforest , where tall, thin trees such as figs grow in search of sunlight. Canopy ecosystems also include other plants , called epiphytes , which grow directly on branches. Understory ecosystems exist under the canopy . They are darker and more humid than canopies. Animals such as monkeys live in understory ecosystems , eating fruits from trees as well as smaller animals like beetles. Forest floor ecosystems support a wide variety of flowers , which are fed on by insects like butterflies. Butterflies, in turn, provide food for animals such as spiders in forest floor ecosystems . Human activity threatens all these rain forest ecosystems in the Amazon. Thou sands of acres of land are cleared for farmland , housing, and industry . Countries of the Amazon rain forest , such as Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador, are underdeveloped. Cutting down trees to make room for crops such as soy and corn benefits many poor farmers. These resources give them a reliable source of income and food . Children may be able to attend school, and families are able to afford better health care . However, the destruction of rain forest ecosystems has its costs. Many modern medicines have been developed from rain forest plants . Curare , a muscle relaxant, and quinine , used to treat malaria , are just two of these medicines . Many scientists worry that destroying the rain forest ecosystem may prevent more medicines from being developed. The rain forest ecosystems also make poor farmland . Unlike the rich soils of the Great Plains , where people destroyed the tall grass prairie ecosystem , Amazon rain forest soil is thin and has few nutrients . Only a few seasons of crops may grow before all the nutrients are absorbed. The farmer or agribusiness must move on to the next patch of land, leaving an empty ecosystem behind. Rebounding Ecosystems Ecosystems can recover from destruction , however. The delicate coral reef ecosystems in the South Pacific are at risk due to rising ocean temperatures and decreased salinity . Corals bleach, or lose their bright colors, in water that is too warm. They die in water that isnt salty enough. Without the reef structure, the ecosystem collapses. Organisms such as algae , plants such as seagrass , and animals such as fish, snakes , and shrimp disappear. Most coral reef ecosystems will bounce back from collapse. As ocean temperature cools and retains more salt, the brightly colored corals return. Slowly, they build reefs . Algae , plants , and animals also return. Individual people, cultures , and governments are working to preserve ecosystems that are important to them. The government of Ecuador, for instance, recognizes ecosystem rights in the countrys constitution . The so-called Rights of Nature says Nature or Pachamama [Earth], where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist , maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution . Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies. Ecuador is home not only to rain forest ecosystems , but also river ecosystems and the remarkable ecosystems on the Galapagos Islands .

Bactrian and Dromedary Different desert ecosystems support different species of camels. The dromedary camel is tall and fast, with long legs. It is native to the hot, dry deserts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The Bactrian camel has a thicker coat, is shorter, and has more body fat than the dromedary. The Bactrian camel is native to the cold desert steppes of Central Asia. It is easy to tell the two types of camels apart: Dromedaries have one hump, Bactrians have two.

Coral Triangle The most diverse ecosystem in the world is the huge Coral Triangle in Southeast Asia. The Coral Triangle stretches from the Philippines in the north to the Solomon Islands in the east to the islands of Indonesia and Papua in the west.

Ecocide The destruction of entire ecosystems by human beings has been called ecocide, or murder of the environment.

Human Ecosystem "Human ecosystem" is the term scientists use to study the way people interact with their ecosystems. The study of human ecosystems considers geography, ecology, technology, economics, politics, and history. The study of urban ecosystems focuses on cities and suburbs.

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Ecology Essay Ideas

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Ecology is the study of the interactions and reciprocal influence of living organisms within a specific environment. It's usually taught in the context of biology, though some high schools also offer courses in Environmental Science which includes topics in ecology.

Ecology Topics to Choose From

Topics within the field can range broadly, so your choices of topics are practically endless! The list below may help you generate your own ideas for a research paper or essay.

Research Topics

• How are new predators introduced into an area? Where has this happened in the United States?
• How is the ecosystem of your backyard different from the ecosystem of another person's backyard ecosystem?
• How is a desert ecosystem different from a forest ecosystem?
• What is the history and impact of manure?
• How are different types of manure good or bad?
• How has the popularity of sushi impacted the earth?
• What trends in eating habits have impacted our environment?
• What hosts and parasites exist in your home?
• Pick five products from your refrigerator, including the packaging. How long would it take for the products to decay in the earth?
• How are trees affected by acid rain?
• How do you build an ecovillage?
• How clean is the air in your town?
• What is the soil from your yard made of?
• Why are coral reefs important?
• Explain the ecosystem of a cave. How could that system be disturbed?
• Explain how rotting wood impacts the earth and people.
• What ten things could you recycle in your home?
• How is recycled paper made?
• How much carbon dioxide is released into the air every day because of fuel consumption in cars? How could this be reduced?
• How much paper is thrown away in your town every day? How could we use paper that is thrown away?
• How could each family save water?
• How does discarded motor oil affect the environment?
• How can we increase the use of public transportation? How would that help the environment?
• Pick an endangered species. What could make it go extinct? What could save this species from extinction?
• What species have been discovered within the past year?
• How could the human race become extinct? Describe a scenario.
• How does a local factory affect the environment?
• How do ecosystems improve water quality?

Topics for Opinion Papers

There is a great deal of controversy about topics that link ecology and public policy. If you enjoy writing papers that take a point of view , consider some of these:

• What impact is climate change having on our local ecology?
• Should the United States ban the use of plastics to protect delicate ecosystems?
• Should new laws be enacted to limit the use of energy produced by fossil fuels?
• How far should human beings go to protect ecologies where endangered species live?
• Is there ever a time when natural ecology should be sacrificed for human needs?
• Should scientists bring back an extinct animal? What animals would you bring back and why?
• If scientists brought back the saber-toothed tiger, how might it impact the environment?
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Ecosystem Essay

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Introduction

Results and discussions, reference list.

The sum of all living organisms residing in an ecological environment forms a community. In the community, the living and non-living factors interact in a manner that ensures balance in the environment.

The aspect of the living organisms-both plants and animal, sharing an environment forms an ecosystem. An ecosystem is always in a dynamic state of evolution (Newman 2000).

The world consists of several ecosystems. These different ecosystems are defined according to their unique characteristics. Several factors are responsible for the different characteristics observed in the ecosystems. These factors are either weather and climate or the living organisms that occupy the specific environment.

An ecosystem should provide an environment that supports the complex relationships of all the life forms that reside within it (Newman 2000). This work seeks to exclusively describe the characteristics of the ecosystem of Melbourne area in Australia.

Melbourne occupies the South-Eastern part of Australia and borders the ocean. based on the Koppen climate classification model, the climate of the area is described as oceanic.

To the East, the area is situated in an intersection of magma and intermediate stones from the Precambrian period. It lies along Yarra River and boarders the Dandenong ranges to the East.

To the West, Melbourne borders Marybyrnong River that flows along the foothills of the Macedon ranges. These ranges have flat volcanic planes that proceed up to the beach front.

(Waterwatch Victoria 2012)

The map shows the topography of the area.

Vegetation types

The area has a diverse plant community courtesy of the favourable weather. The coast consists of scrub family, dominated by the coast banksias. In the inland foreshow regions, woodland dominates. On the contrary, plenty of manna gum dominates the eastern side. Finally, the grassy woodland dominates the basalt-North (Newman 2000).

One of the most outstanding ecosystems in the Melbourne area is the wetlands. The Ramsar convention on wetlands added Port Philip wetland and the Bellarine Peninsula to its list.

Port Philip wetland is very significant in terms of the biodiversity it supports along the coastal region. It supports an approximated 580 species of plants. At the same time, the animal species occupying the ecosystem is estimated to be over 300.

Data collection

Use of quadrats

In the ecological research of the ecosystems in the Melbourne area, several data collection methods were employed. These methods included the following:

Quadrat method

A quadrat, made up of a metal square, of different sizes was randomly thrown in an identified area. The plant species within the quadrat were counted and recorded as indicated in the table below. A second area was systematically identified and the quadrat method used again to collect data on the species within the quadrat.

Eventually, a tally of the various identified species was conducted. The quadrats varied in terms of size. The four square quadrats used all had an area of 1, 2, 4 and 8 M 2 respectively.

Observations

The various plant and animal species residing within each quadrat were observed and recorded based on their morphological characteristics. These characteristics were then described for each plant or animal.

A quadrat method helps describe a representative sample of a given ecosystem.

The tables below depict the results of the plant species observed. Area 1

Biotic components

From the data, it is important to note that the number of most species increased depending on the size of the sample area. This is shown in the figure below.

Interaction between biotic and abiotic components

Both plants and animals in Melbourne have been adversely affected by the soil structure of the area. The Northern part, which is majorly rocky, has the least animal population compared to the other areas that contain rich soils. In fact, the area recorded very limited plant population.

The rocky surface in Northern part of Melbourne, prevents water from reaching the plant roots. The plants, on the other hand, develop deep roots that crack the large rocks to smaller pieces so that the underlying rocks are eventually weathered.

Energy flow

Primary producers:

Primary producers are organisms that make their own food using simple compounds; they are mainly plants (Newman 2000). From the data, the most common primary producer was the grass specie number 4. Some grass species were shorter with very green leaves resembling blades, while others were much taller. Specie number 3 was very short and had long reddish brown leaves.

Primary consumers:

Primary consumers directly feed on the plants for example the herbivores and browsers. The short brown hare and a possum were observed in this category. These consumers feed on the barks, roots, and the flowers of plants.

Secondary consumers:

Those animals that feed on plant materials directly form the trophic level of secondary consumers. Secondary consumers feed directly on herbivores or browsers. Several examples were observed as listed below:

• Red foxes that preyed on some bird species.
• Frog mouthed owls that fed on some species of birds and possums
• White’s skink that fed on small invertebrates.

Tertiary consumers

No tertiary consumers were observed. However, the presence of the vultures could not be ruled out especially in Northern Melbourne.

Chemical cycling

Coastal areas have plenty of dead plant materials especially the leaves. The wetlands contain plenty of decaying plant roots and leaves in the water (Widdowson 2007). In the soil, the top layer where the leaves are rotting have thick humus as compared to inner layers.

Micro-organisms are involved in the saprophytic breakdown of the plant materials into smaller absorbable units. These microorganisms are likely to be the saprophytic bacteria. They break down the complex dead matter into smaller units absorbable by plants (Specht & Specht 1999).

This report gives detailed study of the ecosystem of Melbourne area in Australia. It describes the unique characteristics of the area as well as the species interactions.

Newman, EI 2000, Applied ecology and environmental management , Blackwell Science, Oxford, Eng.

Specht, RL & Specht, A 1999, Australian plant communities: dynamics of structure, growth and biodiversity , Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.

Waterwatch Victoria 2012, Melbourne Region Waterwatch Program. Web.

Widdowson, M 2007, “Laterite and Ferricrete”, in D Nash & S McLaren (eds), Geochemical Sediments and Landscapes , Blackwell, Malden, MA, pp.46-94.

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• Table Of Contents

Trusted Britannica articles, summarized using artificial intelligence, to provide a quicker and simpler reading experience. This is a beta feature. Please verify important information in our full article.

This summary was created from our Britannica article using AI. Please verify important information in our full article.

ecosystem , the complex of living organisms , their physical environment , and all their interrelationships in a particular unit of space .

A brief treatment of ecosystems follows. For full treatment, see biosphere .

An ecosystem can be categorized into its abiotic constituents , including minerals , climate , soil , water , sunlight , and all other nonliving elements, and its biotic constituents, consisting of all its living members. Linking these constituents together are two major forces: the flow of energy through the ecosystem and the cycling of nutrients within the ecosystem. Ecosystems vary in size: some are small enough to be contained within single water droplets while others are large enough to encompass entire landscapes and regions ( see biome ).

(Read E.O. Wilson’s Britannica essay on mass extinction.)

The fundamental source of energy in almost all ecosystems is radiant energy from the Sun . The energy of sunlight is used by the ecosystem’s autotrophic , or self-sustaining, organisms (that is, those that can make their own food ). Consisting largely of green vegetation, these organisms are capable of photosynthesis —i.e., they can use the energy of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into simple, energy-rich carbohydrates . The autotrophs use the energy stored within the simple carbohydrates to produce the more complex organic compounds , such as proteins , lipids , and starches , that maintain the organisms’ life processes. The autotrophic segment of the ecosystem is commonly referred to as the producer level.

Organic matter generated by autotrophs directly or indirectly sustains heterotrophic organisms. Heterotrophs are the consumers of the ecosystem; they cannot make their own food. They use, rearrange, and ultimately decompose the complex organic materials built up by the autotrophs. All animals and fungi are heterotrophs, as are most bacteria and many other microorganisms.

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You should now understand that:

Ecology is a scientific approach to the study of the biosphere.

Ecosystems are created by the interrelationships between living organisms and the physical environments they inhabit (land, water, air). Ecosystems require a source of energy to make them work and for most, although not all, this is light from the sun.

To study ecosystems we have to start to identify the components involved and the interrelationships between them. We can list the living organisms by identifying the species involved.

Food chains and food webs are a way of mapping one type of interrelationship between the organisms in an ecosystem.

Human beings are part of ecosystems, as well as manipulators of ecosystems. As such we are dependent on, as well as responsible for, the ecological health of the ecosystems we inhabit.

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Essay on ecosystem: top 7 essays on ecosystem | geography.

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Essay on Ecosystem

Essay Contents:

• Essay o the Functioning of Ecosystems

Essay # 1. Meaning of Ecosystem :

The term ‘ecosystem’ was first used by A.G. Tansley in 1935 who defined ecosystem as ‘a particu­lar category of physical systems, consisting of organ­isms and inorganic components in a relatively stable equilibrium, open and of various sizes and kinds’.

According to Tansley the ecosystem is comprised of two major parts viz., biome (the whole complex of plants and animals of a particular spatial unit) and habitat (physical environment) and thus ‘all parts of such an ecosystem-organic and inorganic, biome and habitat-may be regarded as interacting factors which, in a mature ecosystem, are in approximate equilib­rium, it is through their interactions that the whole system is maintained’. F.R. Fosberg (1963) has defined ecosystem as ‘a function­ing, interacting system composed of one or more living organisms and their effective environment, both physical and biological’.

According to R.L. Linderman (1942) the term ecosystem applies to ‘any system composed of physical-chemical-biological processes, within a space-time unit of any magnitude’. In E.P. Odum’s view (1971)’living organisms and their non-living (aboitic) environment are inseparably interrelated and interact upon each other.

Any unit that includes all of the organisms (i.e., the community) in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic struc­ture, biotic diversity and material cycle (i.e., exchange of materials between living and non-living parts) within the system is an ecological system or ecosystem’.

According to A.N. Strahler and A.H. Strahler (1976). “The total assemblage of components interacting with a group of organisms is known as ecological system or more simply, an ecosystem. Ecosystems have inputs of matter and energy, used to build biological structure (the biomass), to produce and to maintain necessary internal energy levels. Matter and energy are also exported from an ecosystem. An ecosystem tends to achieve a balance of the various processes and activi­ties within it”.

Based on the contents of above definitions of ecosystem provided by various scientists it may be pointed out that ‘ecosystems are, therefore, unities of organisms connected to one another and to their envi­ronment’ and the ecosystem is, thus, the sum of all natural organisms and substances within an area, and it can be viewed as a basic example of an open system in physical geogra­phy’. Stressing the importance of ecosystem C. C. Park further says that ‘ecosystems are regarded by many ecologists to be the basic units of ecology because they are complex, interdependent and highly organized systems and because they are the basic building blocks of the biosphere’.

In a more lucid style and simple term an ecosys­tem may be defined as a fundamental functional unit occupying spatial dimension of ‘earth space ship’ characterised by total assemblage of biotic community and abiotic components and their mutual interactions within a given time unit.

Essay # 2. Concept of Ecosystem:

According to Eugene P. Odum (1983), “any unit (a bio-system) that includes all the organisms that function together (the biotic com­munity) in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined biotic structures and cycling of materials between living and non-living parts is an ecological system or ecosystem”. Thus, ecosystem is the basic functional unit in ecology, as it includes both organisms and biotic environment, each influencing the properties of the other and both are neces­sary for the maintenance of life.

Ecosystems have both structure and function.

The structure part comprises of:

(i) The composition of all the biological com­munities,

(ii) The distribution and quantity of all the non-living materials (nutrients, water etc.) and

(iii) The conditions of existence (temperature, light etc.).

The functional part consists of:

(i) The energy flow in the community,

(ii) The nutrient cycles, and

(iii) Ecologi­cal and biological regulations (photoperiodism, nitrogen fixing organisms etc.).

ADVERTISEMENTS: (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Essay # 3. Types of Ecosystem :

Ecosystems may be identified and classified on various bases, with different purposes and objectives as outlined below:

(1) On The Basis of Habitats :

The habitats ex­hibit physical environmental conditions of a particular spatial unit of the biosphere. These physical conditions determine the nature and characteristics of biotic communities and therefore there are spatial variations in the biotic communities.

Based on this premise the world ecosystems are divided into two major categories viz.:

(A) Terrestrial ecosystems, and

(B) Aquatic ecosystems.

There are further variations in the terrestrial ecosystems in terms of physical conditions and their responses to biotic communities.

Therefore, the terrestrial ecosys­tems are further divided into sub-categories of:

(i) Upland or mountain ecosystems,

(ii) Lowland ecosystems,

(iii) Warm desert ecosystems, and

(iv) Cold desert ecosys­tems.

These sub-ecosystems may be further divided into descending orders depending on specific purposes and objectives of studies.

(B) The aquatic ecosystems are subdivided into two broad categories:

(i) freshwater (on continents) ecosystems and

(ii) marine ecosystems. Freshwater ecosystems (Bi) are further divided into (Bia) river ecosystems, (Bib) marsh and bog ecosystems while (Bii) marine ecosystems are divided into (Biia) open ocean ecosystems, (Biib) coastal estuarine ecosys­tem, (Biic) coral reef ecosystem, or can be alternatively divided into (Biia) ocean surface ecosystems, (Biib) ocean bottom ecosystems.

(2) On the basis of spatial scales:

Ecosystems are divided into different types of various orders on the basis of spatial dimensions required for specific pur­poses.

The largest ecosystem is the whole biosphere which is subdivided into two major types:

(A) Continen­tal ecosystems, and

(B) Oceanic or marine ecosystems.

The spatial scales may be brought down from a conti­nent to a single biotic life (plant or animal).

(3) On The Basis of Uses:

E.P. Odum (1959) has divided the world ecosystems on the basis of use of harvest methods and net primary production into two broad categories viz.:

(A) cultivated ecosystems and

(B) non-cultivated or natural ecosystems.

Cultivated eco­systems may be further subdivided into several catego­ries on the basis of cultivation of dominant crops e.g., wheat field ecosystem, rice field ecosystem, sugarcane field ecosystem, fodder field ecosystem etc. Similarly, non-cultivated ecosystems can be subdivided into forest ecosystem, tall grass ecosystem, short grass ecosystem, desert ecosystem, see-weeds ecosystem etc.

Essay # 4. Structure of Ecosystem :

Interaction of biotic and abiotic components results in physical structure that is the characteristic of each type of ecosystem.

The two important structural features of an ecosystem are:

(i) Species composition:

It is the identification and enumeration of plant and animal species of an ecosystem.

(ii) Stratification:

It is the vertical distribution of different species occupying different levels in ecosystem, e.g., trees occupy top vertical strata or layer of the forest, shrubs occupies the second and herbs and grasses occupy the bottom layers.

Essay # 5. Components of Ecosystem :

Ecosystem has two major components (Table 4.1):

I. Abiotic Component :

The abiotic components of an ecosystem comprises of all the non-living factors. It includes light; temperature; climate; pressure; all the inorganic substances (Phosphorus, Sulfur, Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen etc.) present in water, soil and air involved in mate­rial cycles; organic compounds (proteins, car­bohydrates, lipids etc.) that link the abiotic and biotic components of the ecosystem.

II. Biotic Component :

The biotic factors include the living organisms of the environment. They form the trophic structure (trophe, nourishment) of any ecosystem, where living organisms are dis­tinguished on the basis of their nutritional relationships. From this standpoint, an ecosystem is two-layered:

(a) Autotrophic (self-nourishing) compo­nent:

This is the upper stratum and is often referred to as the “green belt”. It comprises of the chlorophyll-containing plants, photosynthetic bacteria, chemosynthetic microbes, etc. They use simple inorganic substances along with the fixation of light energy, for the buildup of complex organic substances and are thus known as producers.

(b) Heterotrophic (other-nourishing) com­ponent:

This is the lower stratum or ‘brown belt” of soils and sediments, decaying matter, roots etc. Here utilisation, rearrangement and decomposition of complex materials are the main features. As these organisms eat or con­sume other organisms, they are known as consumers.

The consumers are categorized into:

(i) Macro-consumers:

Macro-consumers or phagotrophs (phago, to eat) are chiefly ani­mals that consume other organisms or partic­ulate organic matter. These organisms are further divided into primary, secondary and tertiary consumers. Herbivores that depend upon plant food are known as primary con­sumers. Secondary and tertiary consumers, when present, are either carnivores or omnivores.

(ii) Micro-consumers:

Micro-consumers or saprotrophs (sapro, to decompose) or decomposers or osmotrophs (osmo, to pass through a membrane) are chiefly bacteria and fungi, that obtain their food (energy) either by break-down of dead tissues or by absorbing dissolved organic matter extruded by or extracted from plants or other orga­nisms.

The saprotrophs by their decomposing activity:

1. Release inorganic nutrients that can be used by the producers.

2. Provide food for the macro-consu­mers.

3. Excrete hormone-like substances that inhibit or stimulate other biotic components of the ecosystem.

Essay # 6. Properties of Ecosystem :

The following are the basic properties of an ecosystem:

(i) Ecosystem of any given space-time-unit rep­resents the sum of all living organisms and physical environment.

(ii) It is composed of three basic components viz., energy, biotic (biome) and abiotic (habitat) com­ponents.

(iii) It occupies certain well defined area on the earth-space ship (spatial dimension).

(iv) It is viewed in terms of time-unit (temporal dimension).

(v) There are complex sets of interactions be­tween biotic and abiotic components (including en­ergy component) on the one hand and between and among the organisms on the other hand.

(vi) It is an open system which is charaterised by continuous input and output of matter and energy.

(vii) It tends to be in relatively stable equilib­rium unless there is disturbance in one or more control­ling factors (limiting factors).

(viii) It is powered by energy of various sorts but the solar energy is the most significant.

(ix) It is a functional unit wherein the biotic components (plants, animals including man and mi­cro-organisms) and abiotic (physical environment) components (including energy component) are inti­mately related to each other through a series of large- scale cyclic mechanisms viz. energy flow, water cycle, biogeochemical cycle, mineral cycle, sediment cycle etc.

(x) Ecosystem has its own productivity which is the process of building organic matter based on the availability and amount of energy passing through the ecosystem. The productivity refers to the rate of growth of organic matter in an areal unit per time-unit.

(xi) Ecosystem has scale dimension i.e., it varies in spatial coverage. It may be as small as a cowshed, a tree or even a part of a tree having certain micro­organisms. The largest unit is the whole biosphere. Thus, the ecosystems may be divided into several orders on the basis of spatial dimension. It is clear that ‘the ecosystem is a convenient scale at which to con­sider plants and animals and their interaction because it is more localised and thus more specific than the biosphere in its entirety, and it includes a sufficient wide range of individual organisms to make regional generalizations feasible and valuable’.

(xii) There are different sequences of ecosystem development. The sequence of ecosystem develop­ment in terms of a particular suite of physical and chemical conditions is called as ‘sere’. A ‘sere’ repre­sents the development of a series of sequential successions starting from primary succession and cul­minating into the last succession in a sere as ‘climax’ or ‘climatic climax’ which is the most stable situation of an ecosystem. Thus, the study of ecosystem devel­opment may help in environmental planning from ecological point of view.

(xiii) Ecosystems are natural resource systems.

(xiv) Ecosystem concept is monistic in that envi­ronment (abiotic component), man, animals, plants and micro-organisms (biotic component) are put together in a single formwork so that it becomes easy to study the patterns of interactions among these components.

(xv) It is structured and well organised system.

(xvi) Ecosystem, for convenience, may be stud­ied as a ‘black box model’ by concentrating on the study of input variables and related output variables while the internal variables may be-ignored to reduce the complexity.

Essay # 7. Functioning of Ecosystems :

The functioning of an ecosystem depends on the pattern of energy flow because all aspects of living components of an ecosystem depend on energy flow which also helps in the distribution and circulation of organic and inorganic matter within the ecosystem. While the energy flow follows unidirectional path, the circulation of matter follows cyclic paths.

Here, only a brief discussion is presented so as to have a general idea of the functioning of ecosystem.

The energy pattern and flow are governed by first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law states that in any system of constant mass, energy is neither created nor destroyed but it can be transformed from one type to another type (example, electrical energy can be converted into mechanical energy). In terms of ecosystem energy inflow or energy input into the system will be balanced by energy outflow from the system.

The second law of thermodynamics states that when work is done, energy is dissipated and the work is done when one form of energy is transformed into another form. In the context of ecosystem there is dissipation of energy from each transfer point (trophic level) and thus the dissipated or lost energy is not again available to the ecosystem.

Solar radiation is the basic input of energy entering the ecosystem. The radiant solar energy is received by the green plants. Most of the received solar energy is converted into heat energy and is lost from the ecosystem to the atmosphere through plant com­munities. Only a small proportion of radiant solar energy is used by plants to make food through the process of photosynthesis.

Thus, green plants trans­form a part of solar energy into food energy or chemi­cal energy which is used by the green plants to develop their tissues and thus is stored in the primary producers or autotrophs at the bottom of trophic levels. The chemical energy stored at trophic level one becomes the source of energy to the herbivorous animals at trophic level two of the food chain.

Some portion of energy is lost from trophic level one through respira­tion and some portion is transferred to plant-eating animals (herbivores) at trophic level two. The transfer of energy from trophic level one (green plants) to trophic level two (herbivores) is performed through the intake of organic tissues (which contain potential chemical energy) of green plants by the herbivores.

Thus, the chemical energy consumed by herbivores helps in the building of their own tissues and is stored at trophic level two and becomes the source of energy for carnivores at trophic level three. A substantial portion of chemical energy is released by carnivores at trophic level three through respiration because more energy is required for the work to be done by carni­vores at trophic level three (building of tissues, grow­ing, movement for grazing, catching prey, reproduc­tion of their off-springs etc.).

Some portion of potential chemical energy is transferred from trophic level three to trophic level four or top trophic level represented by omnivores (those animals which eat both plants and animals, man is the most important example of omni­vores). The animals at trophic level four mainly man also take energy from trophic levels one and two. Again some portion of energy is released by omnivores through respiration.

The remaining stored chemical energy in the plants and animals is transferred to decomposers when they (plants and animals) become dead. The decomposers release substantial amount of energy through respiration to the atmosphere. It may be pointed out that at each trophic level the available potential chemical energy to be transferred to the next higher trophic level decreases as more energy is re­leased through respiration to the atmosphere from each trophic level.

Respiration means chemical breakdown of food in the body and thus respiration releases heat which is transferred to the atmosphere. Based on above statement it may be summarized that apart from the energy released to the atmosphere through respiration, the remaining energy is transferred in successive con­sumer stages known as trophic (literally nourishment) levels from autotrophs to heterotrophs (meaning that they derive their nourishment from others). Ultimately all the energy is passed on the detrivores, or decomposer organisms’

The circulation of elements or matter or nutri­ents (organic and inorganic both) is made possible through energy flow. In other words, energy flow is the main driving force of nutrient circulation in the various biotic components of the ecosystem.

The organic and inorganic substances are moved reversibly in the bio­sphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere through various closed system of cycles in such a way that total mass of these substances remain almost the same and are always available to biotic communities.

‘In other words, the materials that make up the biosphere are distributed and redistributed by means of an infinite series of cyclic pathways motored by the continuous input of energy’ .

The materials or nutrients involved in the circulation within an ecosystem are grouped into three categories viz.:

(i) Macro-elements (which are required in large quantity by plants, e.g., oxygen, car­bon and hydrogen),

(ii) Minor or micro- elements (which are required by plants in relatively large amounts e.g., nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, mag­ nesium and sulphur) and

(iii) Trace elements (plants require very small amounts of about 100 elements, important being iron, zinc, manganese and cobalt).

Besides these inorganic chemical elements, there are organic materials as well which comprise:

(i) Decom­posed parts of either alive or dead plants and animals, and

(ii) Waste materials released by animals.

A few of the chemical elements act as organic catalysts or en­zymes because they help chemical reactions but sel­dom undergo chemical change themselves.

Such chemi­cal elements are hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen which belong to gaseous phase (that is they are found in the atmosphere in gaseous state-atmospheric reservoir or pool) and phosphate, calcium or sulphur which belong to sedimentary phase (that is they are found in weath­ered rocks and soils-sedimentary reservoirs or pool).

Thus, these elements, derived from atmospheric and sedimentary reservoirs, are pooled into soils from where these are taken by plants in solution form though the process of root osmosis. The plants then convert these elements into such forms which are easily used in the development of plant tissues and plant growth by biochemical processes (generally photosynthesis). Thus, the nutrients driven by energy flow pass into various components of biotic communities through the process known as ‘biogeochemical cycles’.

In a generalised form the biogeochemical cycles include the uptake of nutrients or inorganic elements by the plants through their roots in solution form from the soils where these inorganic elements, derived from sedimentary phase, are stored. The nutrients are transported to various trophic levels through energy flow. Here, the nutrients become organic matter and are stored in the biotic reservoirs of organic phase.

The organic elements of plants and animals are released in a variety of ways i.e.:

(i) Decomposition of leaf falls from the plants, dead plants and animals by decomposers and their conversion into soluble inor­ganic form.

(ii) Burning of vegetation by lightning, accidental forest fire or deliberate action of man. The portions of organic matter on burning are released to the atmosphere and these again fall down, under the impact of precipitation, on the ground and become soluble inorganic form of element to join soil storage, while some portions in the form of ashes are decom­posed by bacterial activity and join solid storage.

(iii) The waste materials released by animals are decom­posed by bacteria and find their way in soluble inor­ganic form to soil storage. Thus, biogeochemical cy­cles involve the movement and circulation of soluble inorganic substances (nutrients) derived from sedi­mentary and atmospheric phases of inorganic sub­stances (the two basic components of inorganic phase) through biotic phase and finally their return to inor­ganic state.

The study of biogeochemical cycles may be approached on two scales:

(i) The cycling of all the elements together, or

(ii) Cycling of individual elements e.g., carbon cycle, oxygen cycle, nitrogen cycle, phos­phorous cycle, sulphur cycle etc.

Besides, hydrological cycle and mineral cycles are also included in the broader biogeochemical cycles.

Related Articles:

• Essay on Biosphere: Top 7 Essays on Biosphere | Geography
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• Essay on Biogeography | Geography
• Essay on Geochemical Cycles | Geography

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253 Ecology Topics for Research, Presentation, & Other Assignments

Ecology is an excellent topic for a heated dispute today. Giving rise to numerous discussions, the environment is of great interest to everyone living on this planet. It means you won’t have any difficulties choosing a topic for an ecology essay.

Check out topics in different subfields of ecology below. 10 categories, 190+ topics!

Are you ready? Let’s go!

• 🔥 Hottest Ecology Topics for 2024
• 🗂️ Taxonomic Ecology

⛏️ Applied Ecology

• 🏜️ Terrestrial Ecology

🐛 Organismal Ecology

📝 ecology topics for assignment.

• 🚵 Human Ecology
• 🪵 Ecology Topics
• 🌳 Plant Ecology
• 🕵️ Resources

🔥 Hot Ecology Topics: 2024

Here, you can find a hand-picked list of the most relevant topics in ecology worthy of your attention. Those questions have emerged over the last few years but still require close attention.

• Economies expansion and carbon emissions.
• Greenhouse gas emissions issue.
• Environmental breaches.
• Food insecurity and waste.
• Destruction of natural habitats by humans.
• Transport industry’s input to global warming .
• Why less than 10% of plastic ever produced is being recycled?
• How to decrease the amount of microplastic in the oceans?
• Atmospheric pollution: Causes and effects.
• How to decrease the deforestation levels?
• What are the effects of dust storms in Europe?
• Accounting for corporate accountability: Pollution allowances.
• Air pollution and the risks of mortalities related to COVID-19.
• How much freshwater is used to grow meat for one hamburger?
• Health effects of environmental change.
• What is the impact of using lab-grown meat on the environment?
• Effects of greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperature.
• Nuclear power and its effect on the environment.
• Renewable energy projects against global warming.
• Environmental effects of global migration.
• Tourism and environment in conflict .
• Melting on the Greenland ice sheet.
• The harm of fertilizers on fresh drinking water.
• UAE nuclear power and environmental obstacles .
• The results of tilling and fertilizing in the US.
• The main food systems strategies in Europe.
• Air pollution: Sources, effects, and prevention.
• How soon will we run out of fresh water?
• Overfishing as an environmental issue.
• Radioctive waste management.

However, you probably would like to study some more specific issues in detail. We have selected a wide range of ecology subfields that you might be interested in. You just need to look through all the ecology essay topics in the lists and pick one!

Don’t forget that you can alter the topics as you wish.

🗂️ Taxonomic Ecology Research Topics

Taxonomy is the study aiming to classify all living and extinct organisms. That’s a lot, right?! However, there are particular methods in this field to make the process easier. The systems of botany and zoology divide all organisms into groups, which forms hierarchies. Moreover, there are internationally accepted systems, such as binominal nomenclature . Each of the living and dead bodies has its place in this system.

• Historical analysis: What was the role of classifying medicinal plants in China in the later hydrological studies? It is not a surprise to the experts that creating catalogs goes back to ancient China. The main focus was on the most useful plants since they were used for medical purposes. However, it appears that such an approach also allowed some further hydrological studies.
• How did Carolus Linnaeus develop his classification system known as nomenclature, and how is it different from Aristotle’s approach? If you look back to Aristotle’s attempts to classify all living organisms and compare them to the Linnaeus system, you can see that there is a catch. Linnaeus binomial nomenclature was a result of quite a few failures. Therefore, your main task for this essay would be to try and find out how the founder of modern taxonomy worked.
• What are the main reasons that so many living organisms and their groups are still not identified and poorly studied? It may be hard to believe, but the vast majority of living things are not studied thoroughly. To make it more shocking, even more of them are not classified yet! As a specialist who wishes to do research or write a paper on taxonomy, your task will be to determine the main reasons for such occurrences.
• Suggesting the course of specimen’s evolution: How successful usually the last step of the taxonomical method is? Modern taxonomical methods consist of several simple steps. It all begins with finding a specimen and then comparing it to the existing ones. The purpose is to find a suitable place for it in nomenclature. You need to see what of the available evidence helps identify the course of evolution and how accurate it usually is.
• What are the reasons to believe that numerical taxonomy would be more effective and what may be the difficulties while using it? Some ecologists have a faith that numerical taxonomy can be somehow more effective. For this essay, you should be able to recognize the reasons they have for such claims. However, no method is perfect. There are a lot of contradictions around this one.
• How different is the code for cultivated plants from the rest of them, and why it had to be established separately?
• The differences between collecting and preserving techniques of two groups of organisms of your choice and difficulties of their observation.
• Why do some taxonomy and genetics specialists say that each organism can only be classified if its genotype is available?
• Classifying fossils : What appears to be the main issues if little is known about a fossil, and how does it result in phenetic classification?
• The most effective ways to classify viruses as the organisms whose evolution and ancestral forms cannot be identified correctly.

Applied ecology, like any other applied discipline, uses knowledge to address real problems. These problems are not necessarily only ecological but rather combine aspects of different fields.

Applied Ecology Research Topics

Unlike some of the more theoretical subfields of ecology, applied ecology is where all the action happens. It studies how the newest ecological findings can be used for real-world issues. It appears that this area of research is also closely related to conservation ecology. Besides, applied ecology focuses on habitat and agroecosystem management, restoration ecology, and ecosystem restoration. This field is worth digging into, so we prepared some of the most interesting ecology topics in this section!

• How much attention should be brought to the non-consumptive use of biota such as tourism in applied ecology? Applied ecology does not only focus on managing the natural resources that we need for survival. As humans, we use a lot of biota for recreational reasons. What is the perspective of applied ecology on such a use? Your task is to engage in the discussion on this topic!
• What is the role of explicit timescales in applied ecology , and how are the management decisions are made under the pressure of time? Everyone knows that time is money. However, sometimes, much more important things depend on the time available. In applied ecology, specific time frames affect a lot of decisions and options. If you decide to choose this topic, you would need to focus on the issues that arise whenever there are strict time frames
• Landscape-scale: How does the perspective change the methods used in applied ecology, and what is the use of large-scale view? It appears that a lot of things vary depending on the perspective. Applied ecology is not an exception. For example, when the specialists deal with forestry, they need to consider this aspect. In this case, many management issues are related to the processes found in relatively large areas.
• Historical analysis: Where did the concept of carrying capacity originate from, and what does it have to do with cattle production on rangeland? This term is used in both basic and applied ecology and means the maximum population size that a particular environment manages to sustain. Many other definitions might highlight quite different aspects. However, your main task for this topic would be to look into the origins of this term in applied ecology.
• The importance of studying the long-term environmental changes as they influence the higher levels of biological organization. By now, you can probably see how many vital issues applied ecology has to deal with daily. The topic of environmental changes is one of them. However, you might want to narrow it down and choose a specific species to consider. Moreover, if you need a more complex research topic, pick a particular environmental change.
• Air pollution and how to solve this problem.
• Limited information as one of the main challenges in applied ecology when making effective management decisions.
• Global warming: Realities, challenges and solutions.
• How useful are diatoms as the tools for exploring and interpreting applied ecology problems, and how are they used?
• The soft-path approach for sustainable water management.
• Waterfowls’ role in wetland habitats as the means of wetland restoration designs that can also benefit multiple other species.
• Water treatment system for saline bores in Cape York .
• A case study of the impact of specific pollutants that affect pollinator activity in road verges and how it concerns other species.
• Sustainable gas production in the UAE.
• Environment-friendly freight: An overview.
• Renewable energy and sustainable development.
• Climate change: How Exxon misled the public.
• Eight methods of raw water purification.

Conservation Ecology Topics for Research

This branch of ecology had only recently started developing but already found some useful applications in the field. Conservation ecology deals with the means of preservation of biodiversity and natural resources. You may have heard about the current sixth extinction. Well, conservation ecology is one of the ways humanity uses to slow it down. This field uses other disciplines such as biogeography, environmental ethics, and even genetics. If you want to work with some of the most critical topics in ecology, check out the list below!

• What agricultural practices have been presented as climate-smart but do not meet the requirements for helping climate change issues? Climate-smart agriculture techniques have been used in conservation ecology for a while now. The primary efforts are focused on supporting farmers by increasing productivity while reducing greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change. However, recently some of the climate-smart solutions that do not address those issues have been claimed to do so.
• The influence of positive and negative framing in the campaigns that encourage people to support conservation ecology projects . When people tune in to the news about the ecological situation regarding biodiversity, all they hear is negativity. The predictions are quite discouraging since we are doomed to lose so many species, and the rates of extinction are increasing. However, what if the perspective was on the brighter side? Some organizations focus on the positive future that we can achieve by taking action right now.
• What tools are used in marine protected areas to support sustainable use of that environment and the role of marine spatial planning in it? People do not usually associate marine spatial planning with the protected areas. However, this method helps analyze the marine space and inform the responsible divisions. It also appears that the areas that are vital for conservation reasons come as some of the most common data layers within the marine plans.
• The conflict between the new and old approaches to conservational ecology and its effect on other academic disciplines. The specialists and supporters of conservation to protect nature have been divided into two groups. It seems like the new conservationists see this field as more adjustable and ready for changes. Simultaneously, the traditional values supporters prefer to stick to their established methods of managing ecosystems.
• What methods can conservational ecology use to determine when and why a specific ecosystem reaches a critical resilience threshold? Ecosystems are adaptive structures, and they can bounce back after the disturbances and regain their functions. However, human activities cause ecosystems to become more vulnerable. The resilience is getting worse due to environmental thresholds such as biodiversity decrease and climate change. In your essay, you should study this question in detail.
• From the perspective of conservational ecology, is it more important to focus on maintaining the evolutionary capacity or preserving current levels of diversity?
• Global warming: Effects on the wildlife and conservation initiatives .
• Changes in animal responses to climate and natural disturbances should now be considered normal and regular events during conservation projects.
• What is the importance of thiamine and its availability to protect and conserve some species in the northern hemisphere?
• The genetic pesticide control approach and the potential threats it may bring on the nontarget species.
• Laser beams as the innovation aimed to help catch ocean fish and the issues with the speed of fish replenishing their populations.
• Genetically modified organisms in farming.

Functional Ecology Topics

Functional ecology studies how ecosystems function. However, it is not the whole truth. The thing is that this subfield focuses on how different species influence the environment they inhabit. Special attention is brought to their natural traits. For example, the specialists would study how some plants’ defense mechanisms alter the way their ecosystems operate.

• The significance of Charles Darwin’s works considering the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem health for modern functional ecology. Even though this topic has some historical hint to it, you would be mainly working on linking Charles Darwin’s works with the study of functional ecology how we know it today. Try to find some of his writings that directly connect to this issue and pick the main one. For example, On the Origin of Species might be a great start!
• Case study: What are the reasons why, in some situations, diversity shows an adverse effect and slows down ecological productivity? In general, biodiversity is a good thing. It positively impacts the productivity of an ecosystem. Not only it regulates the most effective and efficient exchange of energy and matter, but it also helps produce extra resources useful for humans. However, nothing is perfect. Sometimes, it happens that diversity causes more issues than brings profits.
• What are the benefits and potential threats of implying complex functional diversity models in larger scales in functional ecology? It seems like most of those models are usually applied on small scales. However, it is suggested that more functional groups of a particular species can positively affect the ecosystem functions. On the other hand, it is the idea that has some limitations. Your task would be to analyze those potential issues that may or may not occur.
• How does functional ecology help in species detection and classification, and how is it different from other approaches? When the specialists try to detect a species, they measure and analyze its unique traits. However, the likelihood of a minor mistake is always there due to the limitation of such data. Therefore, some other approaches should be used instead of or in combination during such research. Functional ecology is a great help in this case.
• Functional ecology and de-extinction: What aspects do researchers consider while planning on reintroducing an extinct species into an ecosystem? The science of de-extinction is very delicate . A full functional analysis needs to be performed before placing a species into the ecosystem that previously assisted in its extinction — no wonder the specialists need to include many aspects into such research. Your task for this topic is to look into them.
• Functional ecology: The importance and applications of the understanding of ecosystems with the help of functional diversity.
• Explaining climate science in the modern world: The role of humans in climate change.
• What are the benefits and disadvantages of using screening and empiricism to study the species traits in functional ecology?
• Genetically modified animals and their implications.
• Functional ecology as the field at the crossroads of genetics, ecology, and evolutionary biology and the combination of the features those disciplines provide.
• Genetically modified organisms in Canadian agriculture.
• Functional ecology in nitrogen-limited grassland: How are plant species traits analyzed to check resource production capacity?
• Evolution and natural selection in Darwin’s finches.
• What is functional ecology in ecological preservation and restoration based on a chosen species considered ecosystem engineers?

🏜️🌊 Ecosystem Ecology

An ecosystem is a complex of living organisms. Ecosystem ecology studies not only the organisms themselves but also their physical environment. A significant focus of this subfield is all the interactions and dependencies that happen in a specific ecosystem.

Terrestrial Ecology Topics

The science of living organisms deals with massive areas. Terrestrial ecology is all about ecosystems based on land.

For example, a desert and a rainforest are in the focus of its study. However, terrestrial ecology covers a lot more details than you might expect. The experts look into all the living organisms in the chosen area, their interactions, and their role in the cycles.

• The effects of extensive farming that led to the destruction of the vast majority of prairie grasslands in North America in the twentieth century.
• Urban problems: environmental pollution .
• Tall trees: How soon will all redwoods die out , and what would be the leading causes of their extinction?
• Plant-herbivore and plant-plant interactions in trait-mediated ecology and their effects on a plant community structure in the Amazon rainforest.
• Extreme weather patterns and climate change .
• The correlation between the railroad construction in the Amazon rainforest and climate change regarding the carbon sink status.
• Brazilian government reducing Amazon’s deforestation .
• What are the leading natural and human-made causes of the floodplains’ build-up in land elevation, and how is this process explained?
• Agriculture and global warming effects.
• How are humans utilizing the cloud forest ecosystems, and what are the potential dangers that lead them to be endangered?
• What are the pros and cons of building a road on the edge of the Amazon River from the perspective of survival of the great mahogany trees?
• Transboundary pollution caused by oil and gas production .
• The most effective way to protect the Amazon rainforest from the dangers of the construction of oil and gas blocks.
• Terrestrial ecology marvels: how does the unique location and variations in elevation help the Madrean Archipelago stay biologically rich?
• Consequences of the disposal of medical waste on the environment.
• Deciduous trees in the cold northern taiga’s harsh area: What helps the larch survive extreme temperatures?
• The use of studying plastic waste that ends up in the US’s terrestrial environments and the application of the results.
• Effects of animal reburial on soil structure and water.
• The negative influence of the rising temperatures and delayed snowmelt on sub-Arctic plants’ vegetative phenology, and ways to prevent them.
• Impact of acid rain on environment.

Aquatic Ecology Topics

This sub-field is a counterpart of the terrestrial ecology.

Aquatic ecology is the study of ecosystems located in the different kinds of water. It focuses on the interactions of all the living organisms found in the bodies of water. Besides, aquatic ecology also considers the effects of temperature, oxygen, and nutrient concentration as the factors that directly affect the habitat. We would not be surprised if this section appears to contain some of the most interesting ecology topics!

• Climate change in developing countries: The cost-effective tools aimed to help sustain freshwater ecosystem services as a replacement for standard conservation efforts.
• Environmental economics: Water scarcity in Australia.
• The case study comparing biodiversity in tropical and boreal streams with the intent to identify the differences in the patterns of beta diversity.
• Climate change crisis and ocean threats.
• How aquatic biota reacts to drivers while taking into consideration local scale variables and large-scale climatic ones.
• Mars company and water sustainability issue.
• How reliable can the bioindicators in freshwaters be, and what are the main environmental quality disruptors that can affect them?
• The case study of the Baltic Sea area: Diatom functional biogeography from a trait-based approach.
• Water pollution and treatment methods.
• The arctic pond ecosystem diversity assessment and the main aspects influencing it, such as climate and catchment.
• China’s rapid economic growth and its impact on water resources.
• A research of the aquatic invertebrate digestion that gets helps from gut microbes and develops resistance to toxins related to gut fauna.
• Water pollution : Movement of genes and degradation of the compounds from rare species into more common ones in lakes with organic toxins.
• Oceans and coasts under climate change impacts.
• The examples of trade-offs that may be involved in guarding native species in regulated rivers by trying to copy natural water discharge patterns.
• The issue of plastic pollution affecting the ocean.
• The main differences between fluxes and compartments in water cycles, and the kinds of units often used to describe them.
• Analysis of the types and causes of water pollution .
• A case study of conservation of aquatic resources in the US and its dangers from the economic perspective.
• What organisms may be responsible for the unwanted methane production found in anoxic sediments in most aquatic habitats?
• Impact of the global water crisis.

Microbial Ecology Research Topics

Even the tiniest living organisms influence our planet. Microbial ecology looks into microorganisms’ processes and how their communities colonize abiotic surfaces. Moreover, it is fascinating to learn how they interact with each other in that environment. The study of microbial ecology is quite broad. It covers micro-flora in animal and human guts, prokaryotes and eukaryotes with complex yet exciting relationships, and even genotypically complicated biofilms. Find out what other ecological topics you can study in this field!

• What is the connection between antibiotics used by humans for medicinal properties and microbial communities in soil and freshwater?
• Zika virus as a public health threat.
• Microbial species distributed regarding climate alternations and their influence on human health and food security .
• Microbial diversity: How much did we lose due to the effects of monoculture, and why this issue is so essential for our future?
• Epidemiology: Human immunodeficiency virus .
• Agriculture and microbial ecology: The adverse long-term effects of agrochemicals and antibiotic usage on microbial communities’ farming.
• What are the potential ways that the microbiomes found in wildlife and can be used for health enhancements and disease treatments?
• Microbe covered in the news: An analysis.
• The network theory and its potential applications in the prediction and management of infections in animals and plants.
• Microbial ecology: The importance of the internalization of bacterial pathogens with the help of protozoa regarding their survival and spread rates?
• Infectious diseases: The virus of Salmonella.
• Microbial ecology and hosts: What evolutionary changes in microbiomes can help hosts adapt to environmental change while the host is alive?
• A case study: What is the potential use of the associated microbiota for the effective risk assessments related to invasive and non-native species?
• The coronavirus infection: Impact on the World.
• Climate change and microbial ecology : The cascading effects of ocean acidification, rising sea levels, and temperature on microbial diversity and its function?
• Manipulation of microbial succession as an effective way of repopulating soils with poor species diversity by flora and fauna.
• The public health and the Omicron virus relationship.
• What is functional redundancy, and how is it represented in microbial communities regarding its effects on diversity and niche overlap measures?
• What are the ecological rules and principles of microbial communities’ structure, and do they follow the same ones found in other organizations?
• Epidemiology: Zika virus.
• The benefits of creating an open-access database or integrating the existing ones as a centralized way for data sharing in microbial ecology.
• Hepatitis B virus in the United States.

Population Ecology Topics

As we all know population can either grow or decrease. The study that deals with the levels of species populations is called populational ecology. It tries to explain how they interact with the environment. One of this sub-field aims is to track and examine such aspects of population rates as birth, death, and migration processes. The dynamics of species are constantly changing in different areas, and it is essential to track and analyze them. Dive into this study!

• The importance of plant populations for conservation biology : The most effective ways to study the functioning for future conservation plans.
• What is the correlation between dispersal and population ecology aspects such as habitat quality, connectivity of local populations, and population regulations?
• The effect of sampling short and long distances and its frequency on the quality of capture-recapture data used for dispersal estimation.
• Density dependence: Competition for resources between multiple organizations that occupied the niche as a determining and obligatory force for survival.
• What forces influence specific plants’ fecundity, and how is it related to the fitness of different population variants?
• Why do populations that delay reproduction tend to have better survival chances than those that try to leave offspring early?
• The main reasons for high mortality throughout the first year of life and lower rates in the following years among passerine birds .
• What rates do population ecologists use to analyze population growth and estimate the possible effects of conservation on endangered species?
• Except for food availability and predation, what other environmental factors influence geometric and exponential growths of populations?
• A case study: Observe a link between the regularity of fluctuations in population size and specific predators’ activities.
• How much can populations of weeds and pests expand with their enemies’ absence after being released in the new environment?
• The impact of river water on wheat plant growth .

Organismal ecology focuses on specific individual organisms and, more importantly, their interactions with the physical environment. Researchers of this field study how particular organisms interact with each other and change their behavior over time.

Evolutionary Ecology Topics for Research

Evolutionary ecology looks into how species evolve and adapt to environmental changes. Mainly it focuses on predators, prey, and mutualists. Evolution studies how species change genetically over generations but rarely attempts to question the underlying mechanisms. Evolutionary ecology is what aims to find those answers. Therefore, if you’re fascinated by how prey adapts to avoid death from predators, this section is for you! Find some of the finest topics in ecology below.

• Climate change and evolutionary ecology: The harmful effects of too high temperatures in deserts on male and female ostrich fertility.
• Climate change impact on business activity in Malawi.
• Risk management in evolutionary ecology: What adaptations have female sea turtles made to prevent large clutch losses?
• What may be the role of a tsunami in promoting a gene flow and improving genetic diversity regarding endangered plant species?
• Air pollution: Causes, effects and solutions .
• The impact of humans frequently feeding wild birds on their transition to urbanized environments and its effect on population size.
• A study of marine invertebrates and resilience: Does protecting their offspring increase their chances to overcome ocean acidification?
• Global warming: Causes and mitigation strategies.
• The first northwest Chinese farmers exploiting grain-fed pheasants and the effects of such management practices on animals’ domestication.
• Coexisting cryptic species: The study of evolutionary ecology forces that play a role in coexistence and coevolution of the fig and pollinator.
• Environmental health and health effects of environmental change.
• Dietary plasticity: What kinds of competitive pressures may have caused the signs of dental caries to appear in the fossils of an extinct bear?
• Fruit flies and predator-specific responses to olfactory cues: What are the costs imposed on general activity and reproductive behavior?
• Climate change’s impacts on the Arab world.
• Incomplete dominance on an amphibian model example: What are the best ways to study the genetically determined tolerance?
• Global warming as costs of environmental degradation.
• What may be the phylogenetic implications of crocodilians’ response: Skin color alterations regarding environmental color conditions?
• Climate change & global warming: Universal mitigation strategies.
• Climate change and evolutionary ecology: The case of adaptive evolution of a sexually selected trait in a specific wild bird.
• Global warming: Future summers.

Behavioral Ecology Topics for Research

This sub-field of ecology might seem hard to understand. However, we always know how to make things easier! Behavioral ecology studies how organisms interact with each other and the environment. In most cases, it concerns evolutional processes. Long story short, if you choose this area, you will be analyzing how species cooperate and compete with each other.

• What pattern does the chosen species follow to transmit vital information, navigate, and respond to environmental variables effectively?
• The differences between the males’ mating strategies within a chosen species and the effects on their chances of producing offspring.
• The main reasons why the life cycles of migratory birds’ species are greatly affected by the cycles of habitats they choose as targets.
• Why are fluctuating resources exploited more efficiently while species migrate between trophic levels to look for food and better breeding environments?
• Studying animal neural processes and communication: What is the importance of such traits as participation in cooperative activities within animal groups?
• What are the main reasons for animals to make signals and attract the attention of the direct members of their species and share the food source?
• The correlation between the choice of parenting style and population: the example of invertebrates that have no parental care and produce many eggs.
• What motivates cuckoos to be such an aggressive parasite since they eject all the hatchlings out of the nest?
• Infanticide among male lions: How to prove the theory that killing the cubs in the new pride helps females start reproducing faster?
• Economic dependability as the central aspect of behavioral ecology: The imbalance in the costs and benefits as the cause of territorial behavior.
• Desertion as the main parental care pattern in most birds: how much do population and environmental factors influence desertion rates?
• What are the examples of highly altruistic behavior in the animal species of your choice that increases their fitness levels?
• Foraging as the most common technique to find food: The correlation between the efficiency of social foraging and ‘intelligence’ in animals.
• Studying behavior in invertebrates (sow bugs) .
• The impact of deforestation on biodiversity and the environment.
• The effectiveness of different renewable energy sources in reducing carbon emissions.
• How does urban planning promote sustainable and eco-friendly cities?
• Marine conservation and its impact on the oceans.
• The relationship between pollution and public health.
• The challenges and opportunities of sustainable agriculture.
• The effects of climate change on global wildlife populations.
• How does indigenous knowledge help preserve ecosystems?
• The environmental impact of single-use plastics and potential solutions.
• The intersection of gender, race, and class in environmental justice.
• How does climate change affect food security?
• Government policies in addressing environmental issues.
• The future of eco-friendly transportation.
• The relationship between human population growth and ecological sustainability.
• What is the connection between water scarcity and human conflict?

🚵 Human Ecology Topics

• Is there a relationship between human health and ecological systems?
• The effects of globalization on human ecology and the environment.
• How does technology shape human interactions with the natural world?
• The effects of cultural practices on environmental sustainability.
• Biodiversity loss and its consequences for human societies.
• The impact of industrialization on human-nature interactions.
• The psychology of environmental behavior and its impact on human ecology.
• The role of education in promoting sustainable human-nature relationships.
• The relationship between food systems and human ecology.
• What are the effects of human migration on ecological systems?
• Technological innovations and their potential to address environmental challenges.
• The future of sustainable cities and their role in human ecology.
• How do consumer behavior and material culture influence human ecology?
• The intersection of environmental justice and human ecology in marginalized communities.
• The relationship between mental health and nature in the context of human ecology.

🪵 Ecology Topics for Presentation

• How does climate change influence polar ecosystems?
• Bees and their contribution to ecosystem sustainability.
• The conservation of endangered species and ecosystem health.
• How does deforestation influence global climate?
• The effects of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems.
• The role of ecotourism in conserving ecosystems.
• Ecological footprint and its impact on ecosystems.
• Ways of engaging communities in ecological monitoring.
• The role of predator-prey interactions in ecosystem dynamics.
• The importance of wetlands in ecological conservation.
• The patterns and significance of ecological succession.
• Strategies for rehabilitating degraded ecosystems.
• The future of ecosystem conservation in the face of climate change.
• Ecological implications of renewable energy development.
• The impact of noise pollution on terrestrial ecosystems.

🌳 Plant Ecology Topics for Presentation

• The role of fungi in forest ecosystems.
• The effects of climate change on plant communities.
• Mutualistic interactions between plants and pollinators.
• Plant-soil feedback and their ecological significance.
• The influence of herbivory on plant community dynamics.
• Evolutionary adaptations of plants to their ecological niches.
• Plant-soil interactions in ecosystem functioning.
• Plant community assembly and succession in ecological systems.
• The ecological significance of seed dispersal mechanisms.
• Plant-pollinator coevolution and its impact on ecological communities.
• Plant adaptations to fire-prone ecosystems.
• The ecological significance of plant-microbe interactions.
• How do plants mediate ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycling?
• Ecological implications of plant phenology and seasonal dynamics.
• Impacts of urbanization on plant ecology and biodiversity.

🕵️ BONUS: Interesting Ecology Topics Resources

In case you cannot find anything that catches your attention, there are other sources of inspiration. The best ideas usually come from the themed magazines and scientific journals. They have fresh materials to help you navigate and check the most recent discoveries on your interest topic.

• Nature ecology & evolution
• Collection of Top 100 Most Downloaded Ecology Topics; nature. com
• ScienceDaily; Ecology News
• TheScientist; Ecology & Environment
• World Wide Fund for Nature
• The Ecologist
• Earth Magazine
• The Environmental Magazine
• Discover Magazine
• Mother Earth News

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Good luck with all your writings 😊

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Essay on Ecosystem | Environment

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Read this essay to learn about ecosystem. After reading this essay you will learn about: 1. Meaning of Ecosystem 2. Nature of Ecosystem 3. Structure 4. Functions 5. Types 6. The Laws of Thermodynamics and Energy Flow 7. Ecosystems Dynamics and Successional Process 8. Ecosystem Disturbance 9. Regulation 10. Material Cycle 11. Productivity 12. Conservation and Management.

Essay Contents:

• Essay on the Conservation and Management of Ecosystem

Essay # 1. Meaning of Ecosystem:

An ecosystem is a functional unit of nature, where living organisms interact among themselves and also with their surrounding physical environment. The term ‘Ecosystem’ was coined by AG Tansley (1935). Ecologist considers the entire biosphere as a global ecosystem comprised of many ecosystems on the earth varying in size from a small pond to a large forest or a sea.

Ecosystem can also be defined as an interactive system, where biotic and abiotic components interact with each other via energy exchange and flow of nutrients. Crop fields and an aquarium are considered as man-made ecosystems.

Essay # 2. Nature of Ecosystem:

Ecosystems consist of living organisms and material environments of soil, air and water, and occur at a variety of scales. As with all systems the ecosystem is composed of a series of inputs, processes or stores and outputs. Although various components within it may change, it is usually maintained in a state of balance, called dynamic equilibrium.

This stability is due to homeostatic mechanisms, which work rather like the thermostat in a heating system. In an ecosystem, changes thus, may be shown by feedback, which is ability of the output to control the input.

The organisms living on the earth’s surface constitute the biosphere and are found in the air (atmosphere), on land (lithosphere) and in water (hydrosphere). At a global scale, land environments with similar plant and animal communities for natural regions or biomes.

Each biome may be di­vided, at a variety of scales, into ecological sys­tems or ecosystem. Each ecosystem has a unique range of species forming its biological diversity or biodiversity.

A.G. Transley (1935) defined an ecosystem for the first time as follows-

“A particular category of physical systems consisting of organisms and inorganic compo­nents in a relatively stable equilibrium, open and of various lands and sizes”.

However, the current definition is as follows-

“Ecosystem consists of structured webs or systems at a range organism and their material environments of soil, air and water. These com­ponents are linked by movements of energy and nutrients”.

Essay # 3. Structure of Ecosystem :

The term ‘structure’ refers to the various compo­nents which combine to produce an ecosystem. These may be divided into living or biotic compo­nents and non-living or abiotic components. An outline is shown in Fig. 4.1.

The Biotic Component—Producers, Consumers and Decomposers :

The living organisms in an ecosystem collectively form its community or population. Each organ­ism interacts with others forming relatively simple food chains and complex food webs. Each stage in the food chain is called a tropic level. Energy and nutrients pass through the tropic level, as vari­ous organisms are in turn eaten by other organ­isms of higher tropic order.

The producers are the autotrophs, thus forms the first tropic level. These are mainly green plants and photosynthetic bacteria, all of which can carry out photosynthe­sis. In marine and other fresh water bodies micro­scopic algae (phytoplankton) as producer.

Producers form the food for the consumers (or heterotrophs). The consumers are of differ­ent tiers. Primary consumers or herbivores form the second tropic level, feeding directly on the pro­ducers. In land based ecosystems they will include grazing and browsing animals such as antelope, elephant and giraffe, together with plant eating insects and birds.

But in aquatic ecosystems, molluscs such as mussels and zooplankton which feed on phytoplankton are the main primary consum­ers.

The third trophic level comprises the second­ary consumers or carnivores, which feed on the herbivores. A fourth tropic level, the tertiary con­sumers, who are also carnivores may occur. Some of the higher level consumers, for example bears, eat both plants and animals, and are called omnivores.

There are several different groups of sec­ondary and tertiary consumers:

1. Predators are those, which hunt, capture and kill their prey.

2. Carrion feeders consume dead and dying animals.

3. Parasites live on their host animals.

The decomposers and detrivores form an­other major component of the biotic structure of an ecosystem. After plants and animals die, they and their waste products arc decomposed by saprophytic microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria. Very small decomposing fragments form detritus, which is then fed on by small animals, detrivores, including earthworms and woodlice.

Abiotic Component or Habitat Concept :

Individuals, species and populations, both marine and terrestrial, tend to live in particular places. These places are called “habitats”. Each habitat is characterised by a specific set of environmental conditions – radiation and light, temperature, moisture, wind, fire frequency and intensity, grav­ity, salinity, currents, topography, soil, substratum, geomorphology, human disturbances and so forth.

Habitats come in all shapes and sizes, occu­pying the full sweep of geographical scales. They range from small (microhabitats) through medium (mesohabitats) and large (macrohabitats), to very large (mega habitats).

Microhabitats are a few square centimeters to a few square meters in area. They include leaves, the soil, lake bottoms, sandy beaches, tall slopes, wall, river banks, and paths. Mesohabitats have areas up to about 10,000 km 2 ; thus is a 100 x 100 kilometer square, which is about a small district.

Each main mesohabitat is influ­enced by the same regional climate, by similar fea­tures of geomorphology and soil, and by a similar set of disturbance regimes. Macrohabitats have area up to about 1, 00,000 km 2 , which is about the size of a country. Mega habitats are regions more than 1,000,000 km 2 in extent. They include conti­nents and the entire land surface of the Earth.

Diverse forms of organisms live in virtually all environments, from the hottest to the coldest, the wettest to the driest, the most acidic to the most alkaline. But there are special requirement for each organisms and also tolerance limits too.

For every environmental factor (viz., temperature and moisture) there is a lower limit below which a species cannot live, an optimum range in which it thrives and an upper limit above which it cannot live.

The upper and lower bounds define the toler­ance range of a species for a particular environ­mental factor (Fig. 4.2). Each species (or race) has a characteristic tolerance range. Stenoecious species have a wide tolerance; euryoeciuos species have a nar­row tolerance.

All species, regardless of their tol­erance range, may be adopted to the low end (oligotypic) to the middle (mesotypic) or to the high end (polytypic) of an environment gradient (Table 4.1).

Essay # 4. Functions of Ecosystem :

There are two major functions within an ecosys­tem the transfer of energy through and the recy­cling of nutrients within the ecosystem.

i. Energy Flows in Ecosystem :

Photosynthesis is the process by which light energy from the sun is absorbed by green plant, cyanobacteria and other photosynthetic bacteria. It is then used to produce new plant cell material, which forms the food source for plant eating ani­mals (herbivores).

Plants are able to convert light energy and inorganic substances (CO 2 , H 2 O and various mineral substances) into organic (carbon based) molecules through the process of photo­synthesis are called phototrophs or autotrophs.

The basic reaction is as follows:

6CO 2 + 12H 2 O → C 6 H 12 O 6 + 6O 2 + 6H 2 O

Carbon dioxide + Water → Glucose + Oxygen + Water

The energy thus produced in the form of or­ganic molecules by photosynthesis will pass through the food chains and food webs of an eco­system, with some of it being stored as chemical energy in plant and animal tissue. Some of it will be lost from the system, as respiration (heat en­ergy) and excreta products.

The total amount of energy lost, from all the trophic levels in an eco­system through respiration, forms the community respiration. Energy is lost at each level in the food chain, with the average efficiency of transfer from plants to herbivores being about 10 per cent and about 20 per cent from animal to animal (Fig.4.3).

As a result of the loss of energy at each transfer between trophic levels, ecosystems are usually lim­ited to three or four trophic levels. The actual num­ber will depend upon the size of the initial autotroph (producer) biomass, and the efficiency of energy transfer between the trophic levels.

ii. Nutrient (Gaseous or Biogeochemical) Cycles :

The nutrients or elements used by all organisms for growth and reproduction are termed essential elements. Among the essential elements some are required in large quantity. They are termed as macronutrients or major nutrients viz., carbon (C), hy­drogen (H), Oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), phospho­rus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and sulphur (S).

However, there are about others 30 elements which are also essential but required in small quantity viz., iron (Fe), manga­nese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and cobalt (Co) etc. They are called trace elements.

The nutrients required by plants are obtained as inputs either from the atmosphere through vari­ous gaseous cycles or in precipitation, or from the soil via the weathering of parent rock, through several biogeochemical or sedimentary cycles. The two types of cycle are interrelated, as nutrients pass from abiotic nutrient stores, such as the soil and the atmosphere, into biotic, plant and animal stores (the biomass).

The nutrients are then recycled, within the ecosystem, following death and decom­position (Fig. 4.4). Nutrients are lost, as outputs, by surface runoff, leaching through the soil pro­file or the removal of plant, animal, leaf litter or soil material. The concept of the recycling of nu­trients between three compartments or stores is shown in Gersmehl’s Model (Fig 4.5).

Some distinctive features of elemental cycles are described separately.

(a) Carbon Cycle :

In the living world carbon is the major element that constitute the organic molecules viz. carbo­hydrates, protein, fat, vitamin and other second­ary metabolites. Carbon is available as gaseous el­ements in atmosphere as CO 2 , CO, CH 4 , C 2 H 2 and various other volatile gas forms. Carbon is also present as carbonate, bicarbonate in water and soil.

Soil also possesses organic carbon originating from decomposition of biomass. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is fixed by green plant through photosyn­thesis as organic molecules. Carbon dioxide may also be absorbed by water and soil to form car­bonate and bicarbonate salt.

Carbon dioxide is formed through organic decomposition, volcanic eruption, burning of fos­sil fuel or woods or biomass. Over the years, glo­bal imbalance in carbon cycle took place. This is primarily due to source sink disharmony. As a consequence global warming associated process accelerated over the years. A simplified model of carbon cycle is shown in Fig. 4.6.

(b) Nitrogen Cycle :

Like carbon, nitrogen is another important essen­tial elements. In atmosphere nitrogen mostly re­main as gas viz. N Ξ N, NO 2 , NO, N 2 O, NH 3 and other nitrogenous volatile gases. In soil and water nitrogen remain as nitrate, nitrite or ammonium salts. Most of the plant absorb nitrogen from soil nitrate or nitrite and then converted to organic forms.

There are a couples of instances, where atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by the nitrogen fix­ing bacteria in free state or symbiotic association stage with legumes. Organic materials on decom­position releases nitrogen gas and NH 3 or nitrate or nitrite into the soil. On fuel burning nitrogen oxide gas also formed and released into the na­ture. An over view of nitrogen cycle is shown in Fig. 4.7.

(c) Sulphur Cycle:

Sulphur is also another major essential elements. In atmosphere sulphur remain as SO 4 , SO 3 , H 2 S and in other allied forms. In soil and water it remains as- SO 4 , SO 3 , HSO 3 or insoluble sulphate rich rocks/sediments. Major sources of sulphur is the volcanic eruption or rock disintegrations. Fossil fuel burning leads to SO 2 production. A diagrammatic representation of sulphur cycle is shown in Fig. 4.8.

(d) Mineral Cycle :

There are a number of metallic minerals viz, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Mb, Ni, Co, Cd etc. which are very essential for life. Most of these minerals are absorbed from soil/water by producer and subse­quently they spread to various categories of con­sumers through food chain.

In the biological forms all the minerals are released to soil by decomposi­tion. Excess quantity of minerals however may be toxic to the life forms. An overview of mineral cycle is shown in Fig. 4.9.

Essay # 5. Types of Ecosystem:

I. forest ecosystem:.

It is one of the major productive natural terres­trial ecosystems of the world.

The forest ecosys­tem varies widely in different climatic zones.

A number of climatic, edaphic and physiographic factors regulates the types and composition of for­est ecosystem.

The major types of forest ecosystem are as follows:

1. Tropical Rain Forests:

It grows in the regions with plenty of moisture and heat. These for­ests were located in tropical South America (viz., Amazon river basin), in the East Indies, South East Asia (viz., Malabar Coast of In­dia), in some parts of Africa and North-West Australia. The annual rainfall of the region is fairly high (2000 to 2500 mm) and evenly dis­tributed throughout the year.

There is a very rich floristic and faunistic composition due to moderate temperature, high humidity, better soil nutrient and moisture regime. A typical ram forest has multi-layer component vegeta­tion with well-developed canopy of tall trees (25-40 meter high). The understory vegeta­tion is fairly thick. There are lots of climbers and epiphytes. The net primary productivity is as high as 30 ton per acre per year.

2. Temperate Forests:

It is primarily a mountainous forest of fairly higher elevation where rainfall is moderate to high, and tem­perature ranges from 5-20°C. It may be ever­green broad leaved or coniferous or decidu­ous broad leaved type. The primary produc­tivity is moderate to high. The dominants spe­cies were conifers, maple (Acer), Oak (Quercus), Birch (Alnus), Aspen (Populus) Beech (Fagus), Buckeyes (Asculus) and Hemlock (Tsuga) etc.

3. Grassland:

It occupies about 20% of the earth’s land surface, and are of three types viz., Tropical grassland (Savanna), Temperate grassland and Alpine grassland. Each grass­land has its own characteristics floral compo­nents. Usually, the vegetation is dominated by grasses, legumes and composites. The Alpine grassland is said to be “Tundra”, which is very much lichen rich. Usually the productivity of grassland is fairly low.

4. Mangroves:

This is a specialised vegetation of coastal tidal mudflat. This is distributed in all maritime countries and island states. It has a characteristic dense forest with short height (3-5 meter) trees with elaborate root system, waxy leaves and other xeric features. This is a tropical evergreen forest patch with highly productive ecosystem. Consumer diversity is also fairly high. In India, coastal estuaries have dense mangrove vegetation.

5. Deserts:

These ecosystems are barren or have scanty vegetation consisting mainly of thorny bushes. It receives low rainfall (<500mm per annum), but are not uniform. There are few locations where perennial water sources may be available. The productivity is extremely poor. There are limited and specialised con­sumers in desert habitats.

Depending on the food availability within dif­ferent forest ecosystems, the consumer types and their population varies. However, among the terrestrial ecosystems, biological diversity is more pronounced in tropical rain forest and lowest in desert system. Due to varied physiographic and agro climatic zonation, India has almost all categories of forest eco­system.

ii. Aquatic Ecosystems :

These ecosystems occupy over 70% of the planet earth. In addition to its own productivity these eco­system plays an important role in the cycling of chemical substances and influences the growth and activities of terrestrial ecosystems.

There are three principal categories of aquatic ecosystems viz., Freshwater (Pond, Lake, Springs or River) ecosys­tem; estuarine ecosystem (at the meeting point of river and sea); and marine and coastal salt water ecosystem. Each kinds of aquatic ecosystem has it own physical, chemical and biological characteristics.

Primarily inland, fresh water habitats are grouped into two categories:

(a) Lentic habitats (standing water i.e., pond, lake and reservoirs) and

(b) Lotic habitats (running/flowing water i.e., springs and rivers).

Both kinds of fresh water ecosystems dif­fers in their physical characteristics and biotic com­ponents. For instance in ponds, lakes and reser­voirs, there are three distinct layers shallow wa­ter zone (littoral zone), limnetic zone (open water zone) and deep water (pro-fundal zone). But in lotic system, such zonation are not promi­nent. The flowing water breaks thermal gradient and also helps in mixing of water components (Fig. 4.11).

Fig 4.11: Four major zones of life in a lake

The marine ecosystem of sea has open seas (pelagic environment) and benthic environment (ocean depths) and coastal water (with tidal influ­ences). There are characteristic vegetation with spe­cies composition (both producers and different categories of consumers too) (Fig. 4.12).

Fig. 4.12 Major zones of life in an ocean

Among the aquatic ecosystems, estuarine eco­system is the most productive one and coral eco­system on coastal littoral zone is the least produc­tive form. An overview characteristics of prominent eco­systems are given in Table 4.2.

Essay # 6. The Laws of Thermodynamics and Energy Flow in Ecosystem:

The application of the two fundamental laws of thermodynamics to energy and matter transformations at the cellular level was discussed over the years through various ecosystem modes.

The First Law (the law of conservation of energy) asserts that in a closed system, energy can nether be created nor destroyed but can only be transformed from one form to another.

Thus, when fuel is burnt to drive a car, the potential energy contained in the chemical bonds of that fuel is converted into mechanical energy to propel the car, electrical energy to ignite the fuel, light to show where you are going and heat to defrost the windscreen.

The key point, however, is that if you could measure the total amount of energy consumed and compare it with the total amounts being produced in these various other forms the two would be equal.

Energy conversions such as these also take place in biological systems. Photosynthetic organisms such as plants capture and transform light energy from the sun and transfer this energy throughout the system subject only to the consequences of the Second Law.

The Second Law asserts that disorder (entropy) in the universe is constantly increasing and that during energy conversions, energy inevitably changes to less organised and useful forms, i.e.. it is degraded Think of this as energy always going from concentrated to less concentrated forms, the least useful (i.e least concentrated) being heat energy.

The consequences of this are very significant biologically Dunn- each conversion stage, some energy is lost as heat.

Therefore, the more conversions taking place between the capture of light energy by plants and the trophic (feeding) level being considered, the lees the energy available to that level. The efficiency of the transfer along food chains is generally less than 10 per cent because about 90 per cent of the available energy is lost or used at each stage.

The study of energy flow is important in determining limits to food supply and the production of all biological resources. The capture of light energy and its conversion into stored chemical energy by autotrophic organisms provides ecosystems with their primary energy source.

Most of this is photosynthetic chlorophyll-based production, the exception being the comparatively limited production of organic materials by chemosynthetic organisms. The total amount of energy converted into organic matter is the gross primary production (GPP) and varies markedly between systems.

However plants use between 15 and 70 per cent of GPP for their own maintenance. What remains is the net primary production (NPP). The total NPP of an ecosystem provides the energy base exploited by non-photosynthetic (heterotrophic) organisms as secondary production.

Heterotrophs obtain the energy they require by consuming and digesting plants (herbivores), by feeding on other heterotrophs (carnivores) or by feeding on detritus, the dead bodies or waste materials of other organisms (detritivores, saprophytes saprozoites)

The energy stored in the food materials is made available through cell respiration. Chemical energy is released by burning the organic compound with oxygen using enzyme-mediated reactions within cells. This produces carbon dioxide and water as waste products.

Energy flow is the movement of energy through a system from an external source through a series of organisms and back to the environment. At each stage (trophic level) within the system, only a small fraction of the available energy is used for the production of new tissue (growth and reproduction), most is used for respiration and body maintenance.

Once the importance of energy flow is appreciated, the significance of energy efficiency and transfer efficiency is more readily understood. Energy efficiency is ‘the amount of useful work obtained from a unit amount of available energy’ and is an important factor for the management and conservation of any biological resource.

The development of most modern intensive agriculture is founded on the principle that increased channeling of energy into a system results in higher yields; however, the energy efficiency is usually less than in more traditional agricultural system

A common ecological measure of efficiency is the trophic-level efficiency, the ratio of production at one trophic level to that of the next lower trophic level. This is never very high and rarely exceeds 10 per cent (the ’10 per cent rule’), more typical values being only 1-3 per cent.

Table 5.1 lists other measures of efficiency often used in ecological comparisons. However, estimates of ecological efficiencies can vary widely between individuals and populations because individuals in a population may live under different ecological conditions.

Essay # 7. Ecosystems Dynamics and Successional Process:

Ecosystem may exist in a relatively stable state or may be subject to change through natural processes or the influence of human activities. In newly cre­ated habitat, ecosystem is build up with time through successional process (primary succes­sions). Each stage of successional process is known as sere. There are three major stages in successional process (Fig. 4.14).

Under some circumstances the primary suc­cession may be affected by natural or man made processes, where new community was build up in place of original community. This is secondary successional process.

Within each ecosystem, there are interactions. The levels of interaction in an ecosystem depend upon the size of the various populations at each trophic level, and the links between the popula­tions of each trophic level, and the abiotic envi­ronment.

The types of interaction include:

(a) Interactions between organisms and their abi­otic environment, and

(b) Interactions between the various organisms in a community (Interspecific and intraspecific).

The major characteristics of stages of eco­system development are given in Table 4.5.

Essay # 8. Ecosystem Disturbance :

The natural ecosystem may be disturbed in a num­ber of ways viz., natural hazards or man-made ac­tivities. Earth quake, volcanoes, cyclone, flood, and landslides are the major natural hazards that dam­age the natural ecosystem.

Similarly, deforestation, mining, industrialisation, urbanisation, and pollu­tion cause serious threat to the natural ecosystems. Each of the factors of ecosystem damage is interlinked process. Deforestation alone can make a number of ecosystem changes as stated in Table 4.6. 

Among the various types of deforestation changes in the globe, the global warming is per­haps most significant change. The felling and burn­ing of the forests is believed to be having a major impact on the climate of the World by increasing levels of CO 2 in the atmosphere.

In September, 1997, the issue of tropical rainforest destruction was brought to the attention of the World’s com­munity, when it was combined with two other en­vironmental concerns.

A major pollution incident covering large areas of south east Asia and centred on Indonesia and Malaysia, occurred due to the burning of large areas of rainforest in Indonesia. The burning became uncontrollable, as the area was already being affected by a drought, thought to be the result of the El-Nino (effect in the Pa­cific Ocean).

The high smoke levels trapped gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and ozone, specially in urban areas such as Kuching and Kualalumpur, producing a dan­gerous photochemical smog.

Essay # 9. Regulation of Ecosystem :

Most organisms live in a variable environment within the environment thus leading to maintain a relatively constant internal environment within the narrow limits required by cells. That cells by some means regulate the internal environment relative to the external one. Organisms have to regulate their body temperature, pH, water, and amount of salts in fluids and tissues, to maintain a few- factors.

Because they take in substances from the environment and use them in cellular chemical re­actions, they also have to discharge both excessive intake and waste products of metabolism to the environment to maintain a fairly constant internal environment. The maintenance of these condi­tions within the tolerance limits of die cells is called homeostasis.

Homeostasis involves the feeding of environ­mental information into a system, which then re­sponds to effects of the input from or changes in external conditions. An example is temperature regulation in humans. The normal temperature for humans is 37°C (98.6°F).

When the temperature of the environment rises, sensory mechanisms in the skin detect it and send a message to the brain, which acts (involuntarily) on the information and relays the message to the effector mechanisms that increase blood flow to the skin and induce sweat­ing. Water excreted through the skin evaporates, cooling the body.

If the environmental tempera­ture falls below a certain point, a similar action in the system takes place, this time reducing blood flow and causing shivering, an involuntary mus­cular exercise producing more heat. This type of reaction, which halts or reverses a movement away from a set point, is called negative feedback.

If the environmental temperature becomes extreme, the homeostatic system breaks down. If the environmental temperature becomes too warm, the body is unable to lose heat fast enough to hold the temperature at normal. Body metabo­lism speeds up, further increasing body tempera­ture, eventually ending in heatstroke or death.

If the environmental temperature drops too low, metabolic processes slow down, further decreas­ing body temperature, eventually resulting in death by freezing. Such situation in which feedback re­inforces change, driving the system to higher and higher or lower and lower values, is called positive feedback.

The idea of homeostasis at the level of the individual can be extended to higher levels: the population, involving intrinsic regulation of size, and the ecosystem, encompassing such functions as nutrient cycling. All involve the concept of a system.

What is a system? A system is a collection of interdependent parts or events that make up a whole. For example, a radio consists of various transistors, transductions, wires, a speaker, and con­trol knobs, among other things. Each part has a specific function, yet the expression of the role of each depends upon the proper functioning of all the other parts.

The whole system fails to func­tion unless there is some kind of input from the outside on which the system can act to produce some kind of output. For the radio the outside input is electrical energy, on which the system acts to pick up certain radio waves, which are trans­mitted as an output-sound. Thus, all the parts of the radio function as a total system.

There are two basic types of systems: closed and open. A closed system is one in which energy but not matter is exchanged between the system and environment. The radio is a closed system, and so is Earth. Its only input is energy from the sun. An open system is one in which both matter and energy are exchanged between it and the en­vironment.

Open systems can be cybernetic systems, that have a feedback system to make them self-regulating (Fig. 4.15). To function in such a manner, the cy­bernetic system has an ideal state, or set point, about which it operates. In a purely mechanical system, the set point can be fixed specifically. Con­sider a dehumidifier set for a humidity level of 50 per cent.

When the humidity of the air in a room exceeds 50 per cent, the switch on the dehumidi­fier turns on and a fan starts to pull air over the refrigerated coils on which the water condenses to be carried away through a hose or pipe. When sufficient water has been wrung out of the air, the dehumidifier shuts off. The feedback of informa­tion on humidity causes the dehumidifier to turn off—a negative feedback mechanism.

Living systems are cybernetic systems that can function at various levels but are always regulated by living organisms. The difference be­tween living and mechanical systems is that in living systems the set point is not firmly fixed. Rather, organisms have a limited range of tol­erances, called homeostatic plateaus, within which conditions must be maintained.

If environmen­tal conditions exceed the operating limits of the system, it goes out of control. Instead of nega­tive feedback governing the system, positive feedback takes over, with a movement away from the homeostatic plateau that can ultimately de­stroy the system.

The systems approach is especially im­portant to ecology, particularly to an under­standing of the function and structure of ecosystems. This approach utilizes the con­struction of models that represent the real system or parts of the system for the pur­pose of experimentation.

Essay # 10. Material Cycle in Ecosystem:

Matter in organisms and ecosystems serve two functions:

1. First, matter can serve to store chemical energy as carbohydrate, protein and fats.

2. Second, matter can serve to make up physical structures that support the biochemical activities of life.

Life is only possible with molecules that intercept and transform energy from one form to another. Life also requires molecules that contain and provide the physical and chemical environment necessary for those energy transforming processes.

As molecules are formed and reformed by chemical and biochemical reactions within an ecosystem, the atoms that compose them are not changed or lost. Matter can thus be conserved within an ecosystem, and atoms and molecules can be used and reused or cycled within ecosystems.

Atoms and molecules move through ecosystems under the influence of both physical and biological processes. The pathways of a particular type of matter through the earth’s ecosystem comprise a material cycle (may also be referred to as biogeochemical cycle or nutrient cycle).

The living world depends on the flow of energy and the circulation of matter through ecosystems. Both influence the abundance of organisms, the rate of their metabolism, and the complexity and structure of the ecosystem. Energy and matter flow through the ecosystem together as organic matter; one cannot be separated from the other (Fig. 5.14).

The link between energy and matter begins in the process of photosynthesis. Solar energy is utilized in the fixation of CO 2 into organic carbon compounds. Organic matter, the tissues of plants and animals, is composed not only of carbon, but a variety of essential nutrients.

There are two types of material Cycle—the gaseous cycle and the sedimentary cycle. In the gaseous cycle, the element or compound can be converted to a gaseous form, diffuse through the atmosphere, and they arrive over land or sea, to be reused by the biosphere, in a much shorter time.

The primary constituents of living matter—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen—all move through gaseous cycle. In the sedimentary cycle, the compound or element is released from rock by weathering, then follows the movement of running water either in solution or as sediment to the sea.

Eventually, by precipitation and sedimentation these materials are converted into rock. When the rock is uplifted and exposed to weathering the cycle is completed (Fig. 5.15).

Essay # 11. Productivity of Ecosystem:

The productivity of an ecosystem refers to its au­totrophs or primary producer’s ability to produce organic matter, normally in the form of organic materials. As such, it depends upon the level of photosynthesis, which in turn reflects the levels of available solar energy (light), temperature, mois­ture, nutrients and carbon dioxide.

Productivity can be expressed as either gross or net primary produc­tivity. Gross primary productivity (GPP) is a mea­sure of the total amount of energy fixed by the primary producers.

Net primary productivity (NPP) is the GPP minus respiration (the amount of energy converted to heat or used in life pro­cesses by the producers):

NPP = GPP – respiration.

The NPP is the rate of accumulation of liv­ing material, in a given area, over a certain period of time and is normally expressed, in gms per square meter per year (g/sq.m/yr.) The produc­tivity varies widely with different ecosystem conditions (Biomass). The details of productivity in major terrestrial ecosystems (biomes) are given in Table 4.3.

Essay # 12. Conservation and Management of Ecosystem:

Human activities, specially habitat destruction for agriculture, industrialisation and urbanisation, the introduction of non-endemic or alien species, and air, water and land pollution have caused a large number of plant animal extinctions. This situation compelled to make conservation and management of ecosystems.

Management of ecosystems repre­sents people’s attempts to effect change in plant and animal systems, which may be beneficial and constructive, rather than destructive to their envi­ronment. However, for successful management, it is necessary to fully understand the workings of ecosystems, the likely causes and effects of change and the concept of sustainable yield. Several na­tional and international actions was undertaken for protection of ecosystem vis-a-vis species and habi­tats protection.

These are as follows:

1. International and national conservation legis­lations implementation (Table 4.7).

2. The creation of protected habitats.

3. The establishment of a global monitoring sys­tem of endangered species.

Related Articles:

• Productivity in Ecosystem
• Biological Nitrogen Cycle: (With Diagram) | Ecosystem

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Essay on ecosystem | environment.

Here is a compilation of essays on ‘Ecosystem’ for class 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Ecosystem’ especially written for school and college students.

Essay on Ecosystem

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Essay Contents:

• Essay on the Ecological Habitat

1. Essay on the Meaning of Ecosystem:

The term an ecosystem is originally defined by Tansley (1935). An ecosystem is defined as the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment they can come in any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces although according to some scientists the entire planet is an ecosystem or an ecosystem is defined as a complex, dynamic community of organisms including plants, animals and micro-organisms that all interact among themselves as well as with the environment that they live in.

An ecosystem consists of the biological community that occurs in some locale, and the physical and chemical factors that make up its non-living or abiotic environment. All living organisms are a part of both a biotic community and an ecosystem.

Ecosystems are what sustain both humans and animals, providing them with energy, nutrients, oxygen, water and shelter, among other things. Ecosystems don’t have strict boundaries or sizes; they can range from something as small as a dead tree stump to something as large as the ocean.

2. Essay on the Concept of Ecosystem:

There are many examples of ecosystems a pond, a forest, and grassland. The study of ecosystems mainly consists of the study of certain processes that link the living, or biotic, components to the non-living, or abiotic, components. Energy transformations and bio-geochemical cycling are the main processes that comprise the field of ecosystem ecology. Ecology generally is defined as the interactions of organisms with one another and with the environment in which they occur.

Studies of individuals are concerned mostly about physiology, reproduction, development or behavior, and studies of populations usually focus on the habitat and resource needs of individual species, their group behaviors, population growth, and what limits their abundance or causes extinction. Studies of communities examine how populations of many species interact with one another, such as predators and their prey, or competitors that share common needs or resources.

These functional aspects include such things as the amount of energy that is produced by photosynthesis, how energy or materials flow along the many steps in a food chain, or what controls the rate of decomposition of materials or the rate at which nutrients are recycled in the system.

3. Essay on the Functions of an Ecosystem:

Ecosystem function is the capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that fulfill human needs, either directly or indirectly. Ecosystem functions are conceived as a subset of ecological processes and ecosystem structures. Each function is the result of the natural processes of the total ecological sub­system of which it is a part.

Natural processes, in turn, are the result of complex interactions between biotic (living organisms) and abiotic (chemical and physical) components of ecosystems through the universal driving forces of matter and energy.

There are four primary groups of ecosystem functions:

(i) Regulatory functions,

(ii) Habitat functions,

(iii) Production functions and

(iv) Information functions

(i) Regulatory Functions:

This group of functions relates to the capacity of natural and semi-natural ecosystems to regulate essential ecological processes and life support systems through bio-geochemical cycles and other biospheric processes. In addition to maintaining the ecosystem (and biosphere health), these regulatory functions provide many services that have direct and indirect benefits to humans (i.e., clean air, water and soil, and biological control services).

(ii) Habitat Functions:

Natural ecosystems provide refuge and a reproduction habitat to wild plants and animals and thereby contribute to the (in situ) conservation of biological and genetic diversity and the evolutionary process.

(iii) Production Functions:

Photosynthesis and nutrient uptake by autotrophs converts energy, carbon dioxide, water and nutrients into a wide variety of carbohydrate structures which are then used by secondary producers to create an even larger variety of living biomass.

This broad diversity in carbohydrate structures provides many ecosystem goods for human consumption, ranging from food and raw materials to energy resources and genetic material.

(iv) Information Functions:

Since most of human evolution took place within the context of an undomesticated habitat, natural ecosystems provide an essential ‘reference function’ and contribute to the maintenance of human health by providing opportunities for reflection, spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, recreation and aesthetic experience.

4. Essay on the Components of an Ecosystem:

There are two types of components that make up an ecosystem’s characteristics:

(A) Abiotic and

(B) Biotic.

Biotic components are made up of living factors. Abiotic components are made up of all non-living factors.

Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential abiotic components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun. It generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere.

(A) Abiotic Components :

These factors are non-living like light, temperature, water, atmospheric gases, wind as well as soil (edaphic) and physiographic (nature of land surface).

Abiotic factors may be abbreviated as SWATS (Soil, Water, Air, Temperature, Sun light):

I.  Sunlight:

Sunlight is a major part of abiotic conditions in an ecosystem. The sun is the primary source of energy on our planet. Light energy (sunlight) is the primary source of energy in nearly all ecosystems. It is the energy that is used by green plants (which contain chlorophyll) during the process of photosynthesis; a process during which plants manufacture organic substances by combining inorganic substances.

Visible light is of the greatest importance to plants because it is necessary for photosynthesis. Factors such as quality of light, intensity of light and the length of the light period (day length) play an important part in an ecosystem.

(i) Quality of Light (Wavelength or Colour):

Plants absorb blue and red light during photosynthesis. In terrestrial ecosystems the quality of light does not change much. In aquatic ecosystems, the quality of light can be a limiting factor. Both blue and red light are absorbed and as a result do not penetrate deeply into the water. To compensate for this, some algae have additional pigments which are able to absorb other colours as well.

(ii) Light Intensity:

The intensity of the light that reaches the earth varies according to the latitude and season of the year. The southern hemisphere receives less than 12 hours of sunlight during the period between the 21st March and the 23rd of September, but receives more than 12 hours of sunlight during the following six months.

(iii) Phototropism:

Phototropism is the directional growth of plants in response to light where the direction of the stimulus determines the direction of movement; stems demonstrate positive phototropism i.e. they came towards the light when they grow.

II.  Temperature:

The distribution of plants and animals is greatly influenced by extremes in temperature for instance the warm season. The occurrence or non-occurrence of frost is a particularly important determinant of plant distribution since many plants cannot prevent their tissues from freezing or survive the freezing and thawing processes.

Temperature controls the rate of microbial respiration; the higher the temperature, the faster microbial decomposition occurs. It also affects soil moisture, which slows microbial growth and reduces leaching. Temperature also affect decomposition freezing temperatures kill a soil microorganism, which allows leaching to play a more important role in moving nutrients around.

Temperature also plays a key role in ecosystems with hot climates allowing rapid growth, high surface animals, and cold climates leading to more spherical, fatty animals as well as slower growth and reproduction. Habitats vary widely as a result of temperature too. Plants and bacteria also have to have particular features that allow for survival in extreme climates of temperatures.

III. Water:

In aquatic eco systems water perform many important environmental functions Water availability is an abiotic factor of ecosystems. Living things need water to survive and how plentiful or scarce water is affects the necessary water cycle of evaporation, condensation and precipitation. Oceans, rivers or streams are key components of an ecosystem and the many forms of life that live there.

The freshwater ecosystem itself is made up of biotic and abiotic elements and depends on them equally as well. Water quality is another factor, with important metabolic functions subject to water ingredients like zinc and iron that become poisonous with low- quality water.

IV. Weather:

Meteorology or weather conditions considered abiotic component are temperature, wind velocity, solar insulation, humidity and precipitation. The most important of these is climate. Climate determines the biome in which the ecosystem is embedded. Rainfall patterns and temperature seasonality determine the amount of water available to the ecosystem and the supply of energy available.

The statistical and seasonal variation of these factors influences the habitat. Weather directly controls the biotic component i.e. Vegetation as well as animals. Climate features such as rain, wind and temperature play a large part also in the way an ecosystem has to work. Rain provides necessary water for photosynthesis and so its quantity will determine just how many photosynthetic organisms can survive in an environment, the predators of those organisms, as well as the types.

Soil conditions that affect ecosystems are the granularity, chemistry and nutrient content and availability. These soil conditions interact with precipitation to cause change. Although animal remains dead organic material such as are considered abiotic.

Air levels define how strong and sturdy the organisms in an ecosystem are, and which habitats must be in existence for them to survive. Low wind levels allow for weaker more feeble organisms that reproduce rapidly to survive. In windy areas, many plants use it as an advantage and make countless spores that will be carried to other plants and pollinate.

Air quality plays an important part because pollution can contribute to carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide degrading circulatory or pulmonary function. Air pollution can also disrupt the process of photosynthesis.

VII. Topography:

Topography also controls ecosystem processes by affecting things like micro-climate, soil development and the movement of water through a system. This may be the difference between the ecosystem present in wetland situated in a small depression on the landscape, and one present on an adjacent steep hillside Micro-topographic elements mix with meteorology barriers to affect plant growth and selection in a given area.

Topography, soil type and precipitation shape surface run-off and limit the ability of animals to build burrows and nests and affects the way predators and prey are able to hunt and hide from each other.

(i) Altitude:

This has effects on climate and so has various effects according to what climate factors it affects.

(ii) Slope:

The organisms on a flat land compared to a hilly one will have different movement muscles to one another. This is because some muscles are say, evolved for forward propulsion (calf muscles) whilst others for lifting the leg (thigh muscles).

(iii) Aspect:

This is the direction that the land is facing (in relation to the sun) and so has its relevance to temperature, wherein for example, an environment that faces generally away from the sun will be cooler.

VIII. Tolerance Range:

Abiotic factors are particularly important to new or barren or unpopulated ecosystems. This is because the abiotic factors of the unpopulated system sets the stage for how well a given species will be able to live, thrive and reproduce there. Each organism’s ability to survive in a set of abiotic conditions is known as the tolerance range.

(B) Biotic Components :

Biotic components mean related to life. These are living factors. Plants, animals’, insects, fungi and bacteria are all biotic or living factors. Each biotic factor needs energy to do work and food for proper growth.

There are three types of organisms that live in a biotic community are producers, consumers and decomposers. The members of a biotic community are inter-dependent in that they all depend on one another in some way for their survival. This inter-dependence is essential for stability of biotic community.

They can be further sub-divided into autotrophs (producers) and heterotrophs (consumers) that include herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores, detritivores (decomposers).The biotic characteristics are mainly determined by the organisms that occur. For example, wetland plants may produce dense canopies that cover large areas of sediment or geese may graze the vegetation leaving large mud flats.

Aquatic environments have relatively low oxygen levels, forcing adaptation by the organisms found there. For example, many wetland plants must produce aerenchyma to carry oxygen to roots.

Other biotic characteristics are more subtle and difficult to measure, such as the relative importance of competition, mutualism or predation. There are a growing number of cases where predation by coastal herbivores including snails, geese and mammals appears to be a dominant biotic factor.

(i) Autotrophic Organisms:

Autotrophic organisms are producers i.e. autotrophs. They convert the solar energy into food from photosynthesis (the transfer of sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into energy).They generate organic compounds from inorganic material. Algae use solar energy to generate biomass from carbon dioxide and are possibly the most important autotrophic organisms in aquatic environments.

Of course, the more shallow the water, the greater the biomass contribution from rooted and floating vascular plants. These two sources combine to produce the extraordinary production of estuaries and wetlands, as this autotrophic, biomass are converted into fish, birds, amphibians and other aquatic species.

Chemosynthetic bacteria are also referred as autotrophs. They found in benthic marine ecosystems. These organisms are able to feed on hydrogen sulphide in water. Height concentrations of animals that feed on these bacteria are found around volcanic vents.

(ii) Heterotrophic Organisms:

Heterotrophic organisms consume autotrophic organisms and use the organic compounds in their bodies as energy sources and as raw materials to create their own biomass. Heterotrophs are further divided into herbivore, carnivore, omnivore and decomposer on the basis of source of nutrition.

Herbivores are also named as primary consumers. Caterpillars, rabbit, grasshopper etc. are plant eater. They withdraw their nutrition from green plants. Energy transferred from plants have occurred.

Carnivores are named as secondary consumer. Consumers, i.e. heterotrophs: e.g. animals, they depend upon producers (occasionally other consumers) for food. Animals that feed on primary consumers are (carnivores) secondary consumers. Blackbird, frogs, Meat eaters, feed upon the herbivores, fewer in number than primary consumers. Their energy transfers have occurred, more chance for energy to be lost via respiration, excretion etc.

Omnivores are named as tertiary consumer or deversivores hawks, fox, dog, humans etc. are omnivores. Animals that feed on secondary consumers are omnivores ortretiary consumers. They have two sources of food, because eat both plants and animals.

Decomposers, i.e. detritivores: e.g. fungi and bacteria, they break down chemicals from producers and consumers usually after death into simpler form .They convert macro molecules into micro molecules by enzymatic activity.

Each of these (Producer, Primary consumer, Secondary consumer, Tertiary consumer and Decomposer) constitutes a trophic level. The sequence of consumption of nutrition from plant to herbivore, herbivore to carnivore in the forms a food is called chain. Real systems are much more complex than these organisms will generally feed on more than one form of food, and may feed at more than one trophic level.

Carnivores may capture some prey which is part of a plant-based trophic system and others that are part of a detritus-based trophic system (a bird that feeds both on herbivorous grasshoppers and earthworms, which consume detritus). Euryhaline organisms are salt tolerant and can survive in marine ecosystems, while stenohaline or salt intolerant species can only live in freshwater environments.

5. Essay on the Ecological Pyramid:

The descriptive device used to explore the trophic structure of an ecosystem is called a trophic pyramid. The purpose of a trophic pyramid is to graphically represent the distribution of biomass or energy among the different trophic levels of the ecosystem. An ecological pyramid (also trophic pyramid) is a graphical representation designed to show the number of organisms, biomass or biomass productivity and energy transferred at each trophic level in a given ecosystem.

Charles Elton developed the concept of ecological pyramid. After his name these pyramids are also called as Eltonian pyramids. Ecological pyramids begin with producers on the bottom (such as plants) and proceed through the various trophic levels (such as herbivores that eat plants, then carnivores that eat herbivores, then carnivores that eat those carnivores, and so on). The highest level is the top of the food chain.

a. Pyramid of Biomass:

Biomass is the amount of living or organic matter present in an organism. Biomass pyramids show how much biomass is present in the organisms at each trophic level, while productivity pyramids show the production or turnover in biomass. The total amount of living or organic matter in an ecosystem at any time is called ‘Biomass’.

An ecological pyramid of biomass shows the relationship between biomass and trophic level by quantifying the amount of biomass present at each trophic level of an ecological community at a particular moment in time.

“Pyramid of biomass is the graphic representation of biomass (total amount of living or organic/ dry matter in an ecosystem) present per unit area of different trophic levels, with producers at the base and top carnivores at the tip”. Typical units for a biomass pyramid could be grams per meter, or calories per meter. The pyramid of biomass may be ‘inverted’ or upright.

b. Inverted Pyramid:

When smaller weight of producers supports larger weight of consumers an inverted pyramid of biomass is formed. In an aquatic habitat the pyramid of biomass is inverted or spindle shaped where the biomass of trophic level depends upon the reproductive potential and longevity of the member.

In a pond ecosystem, the phytoplanktons are the major producers, at any given point. This phytoplankton will be lower than the mass of the heterotrophs, such as fish and insects. This is explained as the phytoplanktons reproduce very quickly, but have much shorter individual lives.

c. Upright Pyramid :

When larger weight/biomass of producers support the smaller weight of consumers (primary, secondary and onwards) an upright pyramid of biomass is resulted. In forest or terrestrial ecosystem plants or producer have maximum dry weight while primary consumer depends upon them have low dry weight as compared to them. Secondary and tertiary consumer also show loss in dry weight successively. Thus, the pyramid of biomass in a terrestrial ecosystem is upright.

d. Pyramid of Number:

Ecosystem community may be represented in terms of number of organism. When the relationships among the number of producers, primary consumers (herbivores), secondary consumers (carnivore of order 1), tertiary consumers (carnivore of order 2) and so on in any ecosystem, it forms a pyramidal structure called the pyramid of number. “Pyramid of numbers is the graphic representation of number of individuals per unit area of various trophic levels stepwise with producers forming the base and top carnivores the tip”. The shape of this pyramid varies from ecosystem to ecosystem.

There are three types of pyramid of numbers :

e. Upright Pyramid :

In aquatic and grassland ecosystem numerous small autotrophs support lesser herbivores which support further smaller number of carnivores and hence the pyramidal structure is upright.

In forest ecosystem lesser number of producers support greater number of herbivores who in turn support a fewer number of carnivores. Thus number or organism producer to herbivore increase, while herbivore to carnivore and carnivore to successive trophic level number of organism decrease.

f. Inverted Pyramid :

In parasitic food chain, one primary producer support numerous parasites which support still more hyper parasites therefore number of organism at each trophic level increase. In a parasitic food chain, for e.g., an oak tree, the large tree provides food to several herbivorous birds. The birds support still larger population of ecto­parasites leading to the formation of an inverted pyramid.

g. Pyramid of Energy :

The pyramid of numbers and pyramid of biomass have their limitations because they provide information only on the quantity of organic matter available at a particular time but not on the productivity and turnover time.

The pyramid of energy is drawn after taking into consideration the total quantity of energy utilized by the trophic levels in an ecosystem over a period of time. As the quantity of energy available for utilization in successive trophic levels is always less because there is loss of energy in each transfer, the energy pyramid will always be upright.

“Pyramid of energy is a graphic representation of the amount of energy trapped per unit time and area in different trophic level of a food chain with producers forming the base and the top carnivores at the tip”.

Pyramid of energy is always upright. It is so because at each transfer about 80 – 90% of the energy available at lower trophic level is used up to overcome its entropy and to perform metabolic activities. Only 10% of the energy is available to next trophic level (as per Lindemann’s ten percent rule).

When a large tree support larger number of herbivorous birds which in turn are eaten by carnivorous birds like falcon and eagle, which are smaller in number, it forms a spindle shaped pyramid.

6. Essay on the Productivity of an Ecosystem:

In ecology, productivity or production is refers to the rate of synthesis or production of biomass in an ecosystem. It is usually expressed in units of mass per unit surface (or volume) per unit time, for instance grams per square meter per day (g m 2 d 1 ).

The mass unit may relate to dry matter or to the mass of carbon generated. Productivity of autotrophs such as plants is called primary productivity, while that of heterotrophs such as animals is called secondary productivity.

A. Primary Production:

Primary production is the synthesis of new organic material from inorganic molecules such as H 2 O and CO 2 . It is dominated by the process of photosynthesis which uses sunlight to synthesise organic molecules such as sugars, although chemosynthesis represents a small fraction of primary production.

Organisms responsible for primary production include land plants, marine algae and some bacteria (including cyanobacteria).The controlling factors of primary productivity are intensity of light, temperature, moisture, air and nutrients.

Ecosystem Productivity:

Tropical regions every day and temperate regions during the growing season receive some 8,000 to 10,000 kilocalories (kcal) of energy each day on each square meter (1 m 2 ) of surface. A kilocalorie is the amount of heat needed to warm 1 kg of water 1 degree Celsius (°C). Because all of the light trapped in photosynthesis is ultimately released as heat, it makes sense to follow the flow of energy through ecosystems in units of heat.

Primary production is the production of organic matter from inorganic carbon sources. Overwhelmingly, this occurs through photosynthesis. The energy incorporated through this process supports life on earth, while the carbon makes up much of the organic matter in living and dead biomass, soil carbon and fossil fuels.

It also drives the carbon cycle, which influences global climate via the greenhouse effect. The process of photosynthesis, plants capture energy from light and use it to combine carbon dioxide and water to produce carbohydrates and oxygen. The photosynthesis carried out by all the plants in an ecosystem is called the gross primary production (GPP).

About 48-60% of the GPP is consumed in plant respiration. The remainder, that portion of GPP that is not used up by respiration, is known as the net primary production (NPP). Total photosynthesis is limited by a range of environmental factors.

These include the amount of light available, the amount of leaf area a plant has to capture light (shading by other plants is a major limitation of photosynthesis), rate at which carbon dioxide can be supplied to the chloroplasts to support photosynthesis, the availability of water, and the availability of suitable temperatures for carrying out photosynthesis.

(a) Gross Productivity:

Gross productivity is the amount of energy trapped in organic matter during a specified interval at a given trophic level. The table shows the use of visible sunlight is a cattail marsh. The plants have trapped only 2.2% of the energy falling on them.

However, at least half of this (2.2%) is lost by cellular respiration as the plants run their own metabolism.

(b) Net Productivity:

Net productivity is the amount of energy trapped in organic matter during a specified interval at a given trophic level less that lost by the respiration of the organisms at that level.

The table shows representative values for the net productivity of a variety of ecosystems both natural and managed. These values are only representation and are show fluctuations because of variations in temperature, fertility, and availability of water.

The productivity of an ecosystem is defined as the rate at which radiant energy (solar energy) is stored by photosynthetic and chemosynthetic activity of green plants (autotrophs) in the form of organic substances which can be used as food materials. In other words, the productivity of an ecosystem refers to the rate of production i.e. the amount of organic matter accumulated in any unit time.

This Primary productivity is of two types:

1. Gross Primary Productivity:

Gross primary productivity is the total rate of photosynthesis including the living matter used up.

2. Net Primary Productivity:

Net primary productivity is the rate of storage of organic materials in plant bodies in excess of respiratory utilization by plants. In other words, the net photosynthesis for an entire community is its net primary productivity.

This is the amount of stored chemical energy (biomass) that the communities synthesize for the ecosystem. Biomass is the net dry weight of organic material; it is biomass that feeds the food chain.

B. Secondary Production:

Secondary production is the generation of biomass of heterotrophic (consumer) organisms in a system. This is driven by the transfer of organic material between trophic levels, and represents the quantity of new tissue created through the use of assimilated food.

Secondary production is sometimes defined to only include consumption of primary producers by herbivorous consumers. (With tertiary production referring to carnivorous consumers), but is more commonly defined to include all biomass generation by heterotrophs. Organisms responsible for secondary production include animals, protists, fungi and many bacteria.

Secondary production can be estimated through a number of different methods including increment summation, removal summation, the instantaneous growth method and the Allen curve method. Secondary productivity is the rate of energy storage at consumer level.

C. Net Productivity:

Means the rate of storage of organic matter not used by any consumer. Such organic matters are not consumed by any consumer it is utilized by decomposer. The carbon and nutrients in dead organic matter are broken down by a group of processes known as decomposition.

This releases nutrients that can then be re-used for plant and microbial production, and returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (or water) where it can be used for photosynthesis. In the absence of decomposition, dead organic matter would accumulate in an ecosystem and nutrients and atmospheric carbon dioxide would be depleted. Approximately 90% of terrestrial NPP goes directly from plant to decomposer.

Decomposition processes can be separated into three categories leaching, fragmentation and chemical alteration of dead material. As water moves through dead organic matter, it dissolves and carries with it the water-soluble components.

These are then taken up by organisms in the soil, react with mineral soil, or are transported beyond the confines of the ecosystem (and are considered “lost” to it). Newly shed leaves and newly dead animals have high concentrations of water- soluble components, and include sugars, amino acids and mineral nutrients. Leaching is more important in wet environments, and much less important in dry ones.

Fragmentation processes break organic material into smaller pieces, exposing new surfaces for colonization by microbes. Freshly shed leaf litter may be inaccessible due to an outer layer of cuticle or bark, and cell contents are protected by a cell wall. Newly dead animals may be covered by an exoskeleton.

Fragmentation processes, which break through these protective layers, accelerate the rate of microbial decomposition. Animals fragment detritus as they hunt for food, as does passage through the gut. Freeze-thaw cycles and cycles of wetting and drying also fragment dead material.

The chemical alteration of dead organic matter is primarily achieved through bacterial and fungal action. Fungal hyphae produce enzymes which can break through the tough outer structures surrounding dead plant material. They also produce enzymes which break down lignin, which allows to them access to both cell contents and to the nitrogen in the lignin. Fungi can transfer carbon and nitrogen through their hyphal networks and thus, unlike bacteria, are not dependent solely on locally available resources.

Decomposition rates vary among ecosystems. The rate of decomposition is governed by three sets of the physical factors environment (temperature, moisture and soil properties), the quantity and quality of the dead material available to decomposers, and the nature of the microbial community itself.

Temperature controls the rate of microbial respiration; the higher the temperature, the faster microbial decomposition occurs. It also affects soil moisture, which slows microbial growth and reduces leaching. This can be especially important as the soil thaws in die spring, creating a pulse of nutrients which become available.

According to Odum, there are three main levels of productivity on the earth’s surface:

(1) Regions of die highest fertility and productivity, which comprise shallow water areas, moist forest, alluvial plains and fertile cropped lands.

(2) Grasslands, shallow lakes and most agricultural lands.

(3) Areas of lowest productivity such as arctic lands, deserts and ocean deeps.

Pyramid of Productivity :

An ecological pyramid of productivity is often more useful, it show the production or turnover of biomass at each trophic level. Instead of showing a single snapshot in time, productivity pyramids show the flow of energy through the big-food chain. Typical units would be grams per meter per year or calories per meter per year. This graph begins with producers at the bottom and places higher trophic levels on top.

When an ecosystem is healthy, this graph produces a standard ecological pyramid. This is because in order for the ecosystem to sustain itself there must be more energy at lower trophic levels than there is at higher trophic levels.

This allows for organisms on the lower levels to not only maintain a stable population, but to also transfer energy up the pyramid. The exception to this generalization is when portions of a food web are supported by inputs of resources from outside of the local community.

When energy is transferred to the next trophic level, typically only 10% of it is used to build new biomass, becoming stored energy and most of them used in metabolic processes. As such, in a pyramid of productivity each step will be 10% the size of the previous step (100, 10, 1, 0.1, and 0.01).

The advantages of the pyramid of productivity are:

(i) It takes account of the rate of production over a period of time.

(ii) Two species of comparable biomass may have very different life spans.

Therefore their relative biomass is misleading, but their productivity is directly comparable.

An ecological pyramid of numbers shows graphically the population of each level in a food chain.

7. Essay on Energy Flow in an Ecosystem:

In an ecosystem Biotic components are connected to each other, Producer synthesize organic matter after using sun light, these organic matter also fulfill nutritional requirement of all types of consumer. Energy enters the biological system as light energy, or photons, is transformed into chemical energy in organic molecules by cellular processes including photosynthesis and respiration, and ultimately is converted to heat energy. This energy is dissipated, meaning it is lost to the system as heat; once it is lost it cannot be recycled.

Without the continued input of solar energy, biological systems would quickly shut down. Thus the earth is an open system with respect to energy. The organic matter transferred from producer to consumer in the form of food. Food is the source of energy and energy in the form of food transferred from producer to consumer. Such transfer is named as energy flow.

The carbon and energy incorporated into plant tissues (net primary production) is either consumed by animals while the plant is alive, or it remains uneaten when the plant tissue dies and becomes detritus. The transformations of energy in an ecosystem begin first with the input of energy from the sun.

Energy from the sun is captured by the process of photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is combined with hydrogen (derived from the splitting of water molecules) to produce carbohydrates (CHO). Energy is stored in the high energy bonds of adenosine triphosphate or ATP. In terrestrial ecosystems, roughly 90% of the NPP ends up being broken down by decomposers.

The remainder is either consumed by animals while still alive and enters the plant-based trophic system, or it is consumed after it has died, and enters the detritus-based trophic system. In aquatic systems, the proportion of plant biomass that gets consumed by herbivores is much higher. In trophic systems photosynthetic organisms are the primary producers.

The organisms that consume their tissues are called primary consumers or secondary producers’ herbivores. Organisms which feed on microbes (bacteria and fungi) are termed microbivores. Animals that feed on primary consumers carnivores are secondary consumers.

Each of these constitutes a trophic level. The sequences of consumption of energy are from plant to herbivore, herbivore to carnivore that forms a food chain. Carnivores may capture some preys which are part of a plant-based trophic system and others that are part of a detritus-based trophic system (a bird that feeds both on herbivorous grasshoppers and earthworms, which consume detritus).

The frog represents a node in an extended food web. The energy ingested is utilized for metabolic processes and transformed into biomass. This energy flow diagram illustrates that energy is lost as it fuels the metabolic process that transforms the energy and nutrients into biomass.

An expanded three link energy food chain (1. plants, 2. herbivores, 3. carnivores) illustrating the relationship between food flow diagrams and energy transformity. The transformity of energy becomes degraded, dispersed, and diminished from higher quality to lesser quantity as the energy within a food chain flows from one trophic species into another.

It is so because at each transfer about 80 – 90% of the energy available at lower trophic level is used up to overcome its entropy and to perform metabolic activities. Only 10% of the energy is available to next trophic level (as per Lindemann’s ten percent rule).

Abbreviations: I = input, A=assimilation, R = respiration, NU = not utilized, P = production, B = biomass.

8. Essay on Food Chain and Food Web :

Food chains were first introduced by the African-Arab scientist and philosopher Al-Jahiz in the 9th century and later popularized in a book published in 1927 by Charles Elton, which also introduced the food web concept. A food chain is a linear sequence of links in a food web starting from a species that eats other species. A food chain shows you which animal eats which in a simple line. Most food chains have no more than four or five links.

There cannot be too many links in a single food chain because the animals at the end of the chain would not get enough food (and hence energy) to stay alive. Most animals are part of more than one food chain and eat more than one kind of food in order to meet their food and energy requirements.

These interconnected food chains form a food web. In a food chain, energy is passed from one link to another. When herbivore eats, only a fraction of the energy (that it gets from the plant food) becomes new body mass- the rest of the energy is lost as waste or used up by the herbivore to carry out its life processes.

Therefore, when the herbivore is eaten by a carnivore, it passes only a small amount of total energy (that it has received) to the carnivore. Of the energy transferred from the herbivore to the carnivore, some energy will be “wasted” or “used up” by the carnivore. The carnivore then has to eat many herbivores to get enough energy to grow.

A food chain differs from a food web, because the complex polyphagous network of feeding relations are aggregated into trophic species and the chain, only follows linear monophagous pathways. A common metric used to quantify food web trophic structure is food chain length.

In its simplest form, the length of a chain is the number of links between a trophic consumer and the base of the web and the mean chain length of an entire web is the arithmetic average of the lengths of all chains in a food web.

Food chains are directional paths of trophic energy or, equivalently, sequences of links that start with basal species, such as producers or fine organic matter and ends with consumer organisms.

The food chain length is a continuous variable that provides a measure of the passage of energy and an index of ecological structure that increases in value counting progressively through the linkages in a linear fashion from the lowest to the highest trophic (feeding) levels. Food chains are often used in ecological modeling.

Food chain varies in length from three to six or more levels. Ex:

1. A food chain consisting of a flower, a frog, a snake and an owl consists of four levels;

2. A food chain consisting of grass, a grasshopper, a rat, a snake and finally a hawk consists of five levels.

Producers, such as plants, are organisms that utilize solar energy or heat energy to synthesize starch. All food chains start with a producer. Consumers are organisms that eat other organisms. All organisms in a food chain, except the first organism, are consumers.

9. Essay on the Ecological Habitat :

Habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds (influences and is utilized by) a species population.

An area of land or water occupied by an organism, a group of a single species, a biocenosis, or a synousia and possessing all conditions required for its existence (climate, topography, soil, food).The habitat of a species is defined as the total area within the species’ range of distribution that satisfies the species’ ecological requirements. The habitat of a population is the part of the species’ habitat that will guarantee the existence of a population.

The habitat of an individual is the actual area occupied by a given individual in all phases of its development. The habitats of many species vary with the stage of development in the organism’s life cycle. The part of the habitat for a species occupies for a limited time only (a season, a part of a day) or for a particular purpose (feeding, reproduction) is called a station. The habitat of a biocenosis is called a biotope.

(i) Microhabitat :

The term microhabitat is often used to describe small-scale physical requirements of a particular organism or population.

(ii) Monotypic Habitat :

The monotypic habitat occurs in botanical and zoological contexts, and is a component of conservation biology. In restoration ecology of native plant communities or habitats, some invasive species create monotypic stands that replace and/or prevent other species, especially indigenous ones, from growing there.

A dominant colonization can occur from retardant chemicals exuded, nutrient monopolization, or from lack of natural controls such as herbivores or climate, that keep them in balance with their native habitats.

(iii) Ecological Niche:

The word literally means a specific place however the ecologist use it for the habitat along with the role a species or population plays in its ecosystem.

“Ecological niche means the total interaction of a species with in the environment or its functional position or status in an ecosystem.”

In ecology, a niche is a term describing the way of life of a species. Each species is thought to have a separate, unique niche. The ecological niche describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (e.g., by growing when resources are abundant, and when predators, parasites and pathogens are scarce) and how it in turn alters those same factors (e.g., limiting access to resources by other organisms, acting as a food source for predators and a consumer of prey).

The majority of species exist in a standard ecological niche. A premier example of a non-standard niche filling species is the flightless, ground-dwelling kiwi bird of New Zealand, which exists on worms, and other ground creatures, and lives its life in a mammal niche. Island biogeography can help explain island species and associated unfilled niches.

(iv) Grinnellian Niche:

The word “niche” is derived from the Middle French word nicher, meaning to nest. The term was coined by the naturalist Joseph Grinnell in 1917, in his paper “The niche relationships of the California Thrasher.” The Grinnellian niche concept embodies the idea that the niche of a species is determined by the habitat in which it lives. In other words, the niche is the sum of the habitat requirements that allow a species to persist and produce offspring.

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• Food Chain: Short Notes on Food Chain | Ecosystem
• Essay on the Phosphorus Cycle | Ecosystem | Environment

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Ecosystem Definition

“An ecosystem is defined as a community of lifeforms in concurrence with non-living components, interacting with each other.”

What is an Ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a structural and functional unit of ecology where the living organisms interact with each other and the surrounding environment. In other words, an ecosystem is a chain of interactions between organisms and their environment. The term “Ecosystem” was first coined by A.G.Tansley, an English botanist, in 1935.

Read on to explore the structure, components, types and functions of the ecosystem in the notes provided below.

Structure of the Ecosystem

The structure of an ecosystem is characterised by the organisation of both biotic and abiotic components. This includes the distribution of energy in our environment . It also includes the climatic conditions prevailing in that particular environment. 

The structure of an ecosystem can be split into two main components, namely: 

Biotic Components

Abiotic components.

The biotic and abiotic components are interrelated in an ecosystem. It is an open system where the energy and components can flow throughout the boundaries.

Biotic components refer to all living components in an ecosystem.  Based on nutrition, biotic components can be categorised into autotrophs, heterotrophs and saprotrophs (or decomposers).

• Producers include all autotrophs such as plants. They are called autotrophs as they can produce food through the process of photosynthesis. Consequently, all other organisms higher up on the food chain rely on producers for food.
• Primary consumers are always herbivores as they rely on producers for food.
• Secondary consumers depend on primary consumers for energy. They can either be carnivores or omnivores.
• Tertiary consumers are organisms that depend on secondary consumers for food.  Tertiary consumers can also be carnivores or omnivores.
• Quaternary consumers are present in some food chains . These organisms prey on tertiary consumers for energy. Furthermore, they are usually at the top of a food chain as they have no natural predators.
• Decomposers include saprophytes such as fungi and bacteria. They directly thrive on the dead and decaying organic matter.  Decomposers are essential for the ecosystem as they help in recycling nutrients to be reused by plants.

Abiotic components are the non-living component of an ecosystem.  It includes air, water, soil, minerals, sunlight, temperature, nutrients, wind, altitude, turbidity, etc. 

Functions of Ecosystem

The functions of the ecosystem are as follows:

It regulates the essential ecological processes, supports life systems and renders stability.

It is also responsible for the cycling of nutrients between biotic and abiotic components.

It maintains a balance among the various trophic levels in the ecosystem.

It cycles the minerals through the biosphere.

The abiotic components help in the synthesis of organic components that involve the exchange of energy.

So the functional units of an ecosystem or functional components that work together in an ecosystem are:

• Productivity –  It refers to the rate of biomass production.
• Energy flow – It is the sequential process through which energy flows from one trophic level to another. The energy captured from the sun flows from producers to consumers and then to decomposers and finally back to the environment.
• Decomposition – It is the process of breakdown of dead organic material. The top-soil is the major site for decomposition.
• Nutrient cycling –  In an ecosystem nutrients are consumed and recycled back in various forms for the utilisation by various organisms.

Types of Ecosystem

An ecosystem can be as small as an oasis in a desert, or as big as an ocean, spanning thousands of miles. There are two types of ecosystem:

Terrestrial Ecosystem

Aquatic ecosystem.

Terrestrial ecosystems are exclusively land-based ecosystems. There are different types of terrestrial ecosystems distributed around various geological zones. They are as follows:

Forest Ecosystem

Grassland ecosystem, tundra ecosystem, desert ecosystem.

A forest ecosystem consists of several plants, particularly trees, animals and microorganisms that live in coordination with the abiotic factors of the environment. Forests help in maintaining the temperature of the earth and are the major carbon sink.

In a grassland ecosystem, the vegetation is dominated by grasses and herbs. Temperate grasslands and tropical or savanna grasslands are examples of grassland ecosystems.

Tundra ecosystems are devoid of trees and are found in cold climates or where rainfall is scarce. These are covered with snow for most of the year. Tundra type of ecosystem is found in the Arctic or mountain tops.

Deserts are found throughout the world. These are regions with little rainfall and scarce vegetation. The days are hot, and the nights are cold.

Aquatic ecosystems are ecosystems present in a body of water. These can be further divided into two types, namely:

Freshwater Ecosystem

Marine ecosystem.

The freshwater ecosystem is an aquatic ecosystem that includes lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and wetlands. These have no salt content in contrast with the marine ecosystem.

The marine ecosystem includes seas and oceans. These have a more substantial salt content and greater biodiversity in comparison to the freshwater ecosystem.

Also check: Habitat Diversity

Important Ecological Concepts

1. food chain.

The sun is the ultimate source of energy on earth. It provides the energy required for all plant life. The plants utilise this energy for the process of photosynthesis, which is used to synthesise their food.

During this biological process, light energy is converted into chemical energy and is passed on through successive trophic levels. The flow of energy from a producer, to a consumer and eventually, to an apex predator or a detritivore is called the food chain.

Dead and decaying matter, along with organic debris, is broken down into its constituents by scavengers. The reducers then absorb these constituents. After gaining the energy, the reducers liberate molecules to the environment, which can be utilised again by the producers.

2. Ecological Pyramids

An ecological pyramid is the graphical representation of the number, energy, and biomass of the successive trophic levels of an ecosystem. Charles Elton was the first ecologist to describe the ecological pyramid and its principals in 1927.

The biomass, number, and energy of organisms ranging from the producer level to the consumer level are represented in the form of a pyramid; hence, it is known as the ecological pyramid.

The base of the ecological pyramid comprises the producers, followed by primary and secondary consumers. The tertiary consumers hold the apex. In some food chains, the quaternary consumers are at the very apex of the food chain.

The producers generally outnumber the primary consumers and similarly, the primary consumers outnumber the secondary consumers. And lastly, apex predators also follow the same trend as the other consumers; wherein, their numbers are considerably lower than the secondary consumers.

For example, Grasshoppers feed on crops such as cotton and wheat, which are plentiful. These grasshoppers are then preyed upon by common mouse, which are comparatively less in number. The mice are preyed upon by snakes such as cobras. Snakes are ultimately preyed on by apex predators such as the brown snake eagle.

In essence:

3. Food Web

Food web is a network of interconnected food chains. It comprises all the food chains within a single ecosystem. It helps in understanding that plants lay the foundation of all the food chains. In a marine environment, phytoplankton forms the primary producer.

Main article:   Food web

To learn more about what is an ecosystem, its structure, types, components, and functions, register at BYJU’S website or download the BYJU’S app.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. what is the ecosystem.

The ecosystem is the community of living organisms in conjunction with non-living components of their environment, interacting as a system.

2. What are the different types of ecosystems?

The different types of the ecosystem include:

• Forest ecosystem
• Grassland ecosystem
• Desert ecosystem
• Tundra ecosystem
• Freshwater ecosystem
• Marine ecosystem

3. What are the functional components of an ecosystem?

The four main components of an ecosystem are: (i) Productivity (ii) Decomposition (iii) Energy flow (iv) Nutrient cycling

4. Which ecosystem do we live in?

We live in a terrestrial ecosystem. This is the ecosystem where organisms interact on landforms. Examples of terrestrial ecosystems include tundra, taigas, and tropical rainforests. Deserts, grasslands and temperate deciduous forests also constitute terrestrial ecosystems.

5. What is the structure of the ecosystem?

The structure of the ecosystem includes the organisms and physical features of the environment, including the amount and distribution of nutrients in a particular habitat. It also provides information regarding the climatic conditions of that area.

6. Which is the largest ecosystem in the world?

The largest ecosystem in the world is the aquatic ecosystem. It comprises freshwater and marine ecosystems. It constitutes 70% of the surface of the earth.

7. What is the major function of an ecosystem?

The ecosystem is the functional unit of the environment system. The abiotic components provide the matrix for the synthesis of organic components. This process involves the exchange of energy.

8. What makes a good ecosystem?

A good ecosystem consists of native plants and animal species interacting with each other and the environment. A healthy ecosystem has an energy source and the decomposers that break down dead plants and animal matter, returning essential nutrients to the soil.

9. What all include the non-living things in an ecosystem?

The non-living things in an ecosystem include air, wind, water, rocks, soil, temperature and sunlight. These are known as the abiotic factors of an ecosystem.

Register at BYJU’S for ecosystem notes or other important study resources.

Further Reading:

• Our Environment
• Energy Flow In Ecosystem
• What Is A Natural Ecosystem?
• Why Is The Ecosystem Important?
• What Are The Five Levels Of Ecology?
• What Are The Different Fields Of Ecology?
• What Are The Three Environmental Issues?
• Difference Between Food Chain And Food Web
• How Many Types Of The Ecosystem Are There?
• How Can We Improve Our Environmental Health?

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ecology and ecosystem

Updated 10 March 2023

Subject Biology ,  Environment Problems ,  Industry

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Category Economics ,  Environment ,  Science

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Impact of Agriculture on the Environment

Aquatic life and poor farming practices, effects of acidic soil on aquatic life, impact on life form, importance of life form.

Okazaki, E., & Osako, K. (2014). Isolation and characterization of acid-soluble collagen from the scales of marine fishes from Japan and Vietnam. Food Chemistry, 149, 264-270.

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Essay on Environment for Students and Children

500+ words essay on environment.

Essay on Environment – All living things that live on this earth comes under the environment. Whether they live on land or water they are part of the environment. The environment also includes air, water, sunlight, plants, animals, etc.

Moreover, the earth is considered the only planet in the universe that supports life. The environment can be understood as a blanket that keeps life on the planet sage and sound.

Importance of Environment

We truly cannot understand the real worth of the environment. But we can estimate some of its importance that can help us understand its importance. It plays a vital role in keeping living things healthy in the environment.

Likewise, it maintains the ecological balance that will keep check of life on earth. It provides food, shelter, air, and fulfills all the human needs whether big or small.

Moreover, the entire life support of humans depends wholly on the environmental factors. In addition, it also helps in maintaining various life cycles on earth.

Most importantly, our environment is the source of natural beauty and is necessary for maintaining physical and mental health.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Benefits of the Environment

The environment gives us countless benefits that we can’t repay our entire life. As they are connected with the forest, trees, animals, water, and air. The forest and trees filter the air and absorb harmful gases. Plants purify water, reduce the chances of flood maintain natural balance and many others.

Moreover, the environment keeps a close check on the environment and its functioning, It regulates the vital systems that are essential for the ecosystem. Besides, it maintains the culture and quality of life on earth.

The environment regulates various natural cycles that happen daily. These cycles help in maintaining the natural balance between living things and the environment. Disturbance of these things can ultimately affect the life cycle of humans and other living beings.

The environment has helped us and other living beings to flourish and grow from thousands of years. The environment provides us fertile land, water, air, livestock and many essential things for survival.

Cause of Environmental Degradation

Human activities are the major cause of environmental degradation because most of the activities humans do harm the environment in some way. The activities of humans that causes environmental degradation is pollution, defective environmental policies, chemicals, greenhouse gases, global warming, ozone depletion, etc.

All these affect the environment badly. Besides, these the overuse of natural resources will create a situation in the future there will be no resources for consumption. And the most basic necessity of living air will get so polluted that humans have to use bottled oxygen for breathing.

Above all, increasing human activity is exerting more pressure on the surface of the earth which is causing many disasters in an unnatural form. Also, we are using the natural resources at a pace that within a few years they will vanish from the earth. To conclude, we can say that it is the environment that is keeping us alive. Without the blanket of environment, we won’t be able to survive.

Moreover, the environment’s contribution to life cannot be repaid. Besides, still what the environment has done for us, in return we only have damaged and degraded it.

FAQs about Essay on Environment

Q.1 What is the true meaning of the environment?

A.1 The ecosystem that includes all the plants, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, water bodies, fishes, human beings, trees, microorganisms and many more are part of the environment. Besides, all these constitute the environment.

Q.2 What is the three types of the environment?

A.2 The three types of environment includes the physical, social, and cultural environment. Besides, various scientists have defined different types and numbers of environment.

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Using flux networks to discover long term controls of ecosystem productivity

• Moore, David
• Abarzua, Angie
• Devine, Charles

Climate, potential biota, topography, geological parent material, and time. The state factor-interactive-controls hypothesis is a pervasive concept in ecosystem ecology that could explain long term controls of eddy covariance estimates of gross primary productivity. The hypothesis is adopted by ecologists whenever a gradient analysis is used (a chrono-sequence or a climate gradient). In this framework the state factors of climate, potential biota, topography, geological parent material, and time control ecosystem processes but are not themselves influenced by ecosystem processes at local scales. Interactive controls like realized plant functional types, soil resources, microclimate and disturbance frequency influence and are influenced by ecosystem processes. Flux networks represent whole ecosystem process measurements and while much has been learned from analyzing short term controls, longer term controls have been investigated less often. The last two decades have seen the growth of the Ameriflux network in North America; similar measurements of ecosystem carbon, water and energy exchange made across a wide range of ecosystem types. We tested whether gross primary productivity, estimated using the eddy covariance method across more than 40 ecosystems in North America conformed to the State-Factor-Interactive-Controls hypothesis. To estimate state factors we combined satellite observations, digital elevation models, geological and soil maps and climate re-analysis. By limiting our analysis to sites with more than 10 years of data we were able to remove the effect of short-term direct controls (light, temperature, moisture etc) on gross primary productivity. We found significant interactive effects of climate and geological substrate and a strong direct effect of climate on average gross primary productivity. We also found a strong effect of biota on the variation that was not explained by state factors. Comparing these patterns to predictions from an Earth System Model we found contrasting results. These findings provide support for the state factors-interactive-controls hypothesis and suggest new opportunities for ecological synthesis using networks of ecological data.

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Understanding ecosystems for a sustainable future, search form.

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Coastal Disease Ecology Lab Intern (Fall 2024)

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Although sequestration of blue carbon dominates discussions of wetland ecosystem services, several other services provided by seagrasses ("co-benefits") are likely to prove equally or more valuable to humanity but remain poorly studied. Measuring the portfolio of seagrass ecosystem services together will address the key question of whether services are synergistic or involve trade-offs, with quite different implications for management and nature-based solutions. We will employ modern genomic tools in an innovative way to characterize seagrass support for fisheries species, coastal protection, and pathogen and parasite purging from coastal waters. The proposed research will allow a first integrated assessment of these services for a seagrass ecosystem, targeting the greater Chesapeake Bay region as the model, which we hope to extend globally with external funding.

This position is in collaboration with the Coastal Disease Ecology Lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) led by Dr. Katrina Lohan . This project is in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Ogburn of the Fisheries Conservation Lab and Dr. Emmett Duffy of the Smithsonian MarineGEO Network . The primary location for conducting the research will be at SERC in Edgewater, Maryland, which is a research center of the Smithsonian Institution, located on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, approximately 10 miles south of Annapolis. The 2,650-acre SERC campus contains a laboratory and office complex, as well as educational and waterfront facilities.

The intern will learn from the PI, graduate students, professional technicians, and collaborators:

• Molecular genetic lab techniques, including DNA extraction, PCR, and metabarcode library preparation
• Principles of environmental DNA (eDNA) and dietary DNA (dDNA), from sample collection to processing and the limitations of these approaches
• General laboratory best practices, such as sample labeling and curation

Please send resume and letter of interest in a single pdf to Katrina Lohan at [email protected] . Application review will begin August 1, 2024.

Katrina Lohan Principal Investigator, Coastal Disease Ecology Lab [email protected]

SERC is a research center of the Smithsonian Institution, located in Edgewater, MD on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, approximately 10 miles south of Annapolis, 40 miles west of Washington DC, and 40 miles south of Baltimore. SERC's 2,650-acre campus is a living laboratory for long-term ecosystem research on forests, farmland, wetlands, shorelines, and estuaries. The SERC campus contains a laboratory and office complex, as well as education and waterfront facilities, dormitories for interns, and guest housing for visitors.

The Smithsonian Institution is an equal opportunity employer, committed to a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, marital, parental, or caregiver status, and disability. The SERC community recognizes the value of workforce diversity, and we strongly encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply. We recognize that each applicant for this role will bring unique skills, knowledge, experiences, and background to this position.

How the Scale of Spatial Management Can Reduce Risks of Mis-Management in the Marine Environment

18 Pages Posted: 8 Jul 2024

Judi Hewitt

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Fabrice Stephenson

University of Waikato; University of Waikato - School of Science

Simon Thrush

University of Auckland

Jasmine Low

Conrad pilditch, rebecca gladstone-gallagher, joanne ellis.

University of Waikato

For many years, examples of scale mismatches and their consequences have been documented in the social, ecological and management literature. Some of these mismatches arise because we have not put ecology first but focused on institutional arrangements. We have no standard methods of assessing the severity of scale mismatches and whether we can prevent them with adequate scaling rules.  Here we suggest that connectivity is key to scale matching. Rather than attempt to determine fixed scales and scaling rules we suggest that the debate needs to shift to the realm of risk and uncertainty and understanding the potential consequences of any mismatches. We demonstrate this by considering spatial and temporal aspects of ecological connectivity in relation to the size of the proposed management areas. We present a method for assessing the risk to successful management actions and suggest that the method can be repeated for different spatial scenarios.  This could reveal a hierarchy of multiple management extents coupled with the relevant ecology and management aims, based on differing levels of connectivity. In using this approach, we feel that beginning with small areas and iterating upwards is most likely to produce a robust solution in marine systems, as connectivity does not scale well using totals or averages.

Keywords: management areas, beta diversity, connectivity, functional traits, source-sink dynamics

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Judi Hewitt (Contact Author)

Affiliation not provided to ssrn ( email ).

No Address Available

University of Waikato ( email )

Hillcreset Hamilton, Waikato 3216 New Zealand

University of Waikato - School of Science ( email )

University of auckland ( email ), do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on ssrn, paper statistics, related ejournals, ecosystem ecology ejournal.

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