The term ecosphere is used to denote biosphere (living components) together with atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere (non-living component) of the earth as one entity. Deficiency or excess of any one of them limits the growth of the organisms in the ecosystem 2. The structure of an ecosystem is characterized by its physical organization of the biotic and abiotic components.
Part of the gross primary productivity is utilized by the plant for its own metabolism, maintenance and reproduction. They take care of the dead remains of organisms at each trophic level and help recycle the nutrients. Macrodecomposers make up a very small part of the decomposers and are visible to the naked eye.
The primary production of the autotrophs determines the type and number of heterotrophs in the ecosystem. It can be expressed in terms of biomass, number or total amount of energy captured at each step of the food chain. When an ecological pyramid is built on the. based on the number of individuals at each trophic level, this is called a number pyramid.
Some burrowing animals live underground in their tunnels or in the roots of plants.
Nutrient cycles (biogeochemical cycles)
This is followed by short trees and bushes and then the forest floor is covered with herbs and grasses. Each layer from the treetop to the forest floor has different fauna and flora from the other. On the other hand, the desert ecosystem shows discontinuous layers of sparse vegetation and animals with some bare patches of soil showing a type of horizontal stratification.
Development of ecosystem or ecological succession 4. Homeostasis or feedback control mechanisms
The number of steps is limited to four or five in a food chain for the transfer of energy, because during this process of energy transfer some energy is lost in the system as heat energy (second law of thermodynamics) and is not available for the next higher trophic level. Ecological efficiency is defined as the percentage ratio of the energy flow at different points along the food chain. This is an example of human modified system and it is also assumed that all the food is assimilated in the body of chicken.
The cycling of the nutrients in the biosphere is called the biogeochemical or nutrient cycle ("Bio" - living, "Geo" - rock, "Chemical" - element. This is in contrast to the energy flow which is linear and there is a continuous flow of input of solar radiation in the biosphere, because energy is used by the organisms to carry out their life processes, while the nutrients (matter) are recovered from the dead remains of organisms and made available to the producers by decomposers.
Based on the type of reservoir, these cycles are classified into two types. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the source of all carbon in both living organisms as well as in the fossils (used as fossil fuels). Through this process of photosynthesis, the inorganic carbon is converted into organic matter in the presence of sunlight and chlorophyll.
The carbon dioxide is therefore captured and assimilated by plants. It is partly used by them for their own life processes and the rest is stored as their biomass which is available as food to the heterotrophs. A large part is retained by them as their own biomass, which is available to decomposers upon the death of these organisms. Fossil fuel is the product of the complete or partial decomposition of plants and animals due to exposure to heat and pressure in the Earth's crust over millions of years.
Impact of human activities: Carbon dioxide is constantly increasing in the atmosphere due to human activities such as industrialization, urbanization and increased use of automobiles. 8 Carbon cycle: Arrows indicate carbon cycle processes and compartments are the sites of these processes or carbon stores in the reservoir pool and ecosystem. It is converted into a chemically usable form that constitutes the main function of the nitrogen cycle.
Earth is a water planet of the solar system, but a very small part of this is available to animals and plants. Thus, only 0.6% is present as fresh water in the form of atmospheric water vapor, soil and soil. Water remains in the vapor state in the air and forms clouds, which move with the wind.
Clouds meet cold air in mountain areas above forests and condense into rain that falls due to gravity. On average, 84% of water is lost from the surface of the oceans through evaporation. The remaining 7% of evaporation from the oceans is balanced by the outflow of water through rivers from land, since evaporation on land is 16%.
The species composition of communities is not stable, but undergoes regular changes in a certain way over time until it becomes more or less stable. The forest is of the last serial stage which is stable for a very long time and represents a climax community. If it is a humid climate, it results in the formation of forests, but if it is dry, the climax community may be a grassland or a desert.
It is called allogenic if it results from natural changes in the physical environment and autogenic if it is caused by modification of the environment by the community itself. Thanks to this process, most biological systems tend to maintain stability. For example, if the population of zooplankton in a pond ecosystem increases, they would consume a large portion of the phytoplankton, resulting in a shortage of food for them after some time.
Resilience is a measure of the degree to which a system changes from an equilibrium state following a disturbance. Microorganisms are the only life forms that can function as a chemostat and help preserve the 21% of atmospheric oxygen that is essential for life on earth. A farmland in the countryside, an aquarium at home or a park in the residential society are maintained by human beings.
Physical factors: Pond receives solar radiation, which provides it light and heat energy
Inorganic Substances: These are water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium and a few other elements like sulphur or phosphorus depending on the location of the pond
Organic compounds: The commonly found organic matter in the pond is amino acids and humic acids and the breakdown products of dead animals and plants. They are
Producers or Autotrophs :. They synthesize food for all the heterotrophs of the pond
They are small microscopic organisms that float in water and move in the direction of water currents. Sometimes they are so abundant in the pond that they cover the entire surface and make it look green eg. Spirogyra, Ulothrix, Cladophora, Volvox and diatoms. Pond animals can be classified into the following groups depending on their lifestyle.. a) Zooplankton are floating animals like many crustaceans.
Agriculture and aquaculture use solar energy along with nutrients provided by humans, while urban and industrial ecosystems rely on fossil fuels and other human-generated energy sources. To maintain their productivity, large amounts of fertilizers are added to restore their nutrients, while in natural ecosystems soil fertility is maintained without adding soil nutrients. The soil is poor in nutrients according to their needs, therefore they need artificial nutrients or chemical fertilizers.
Improved cropping system: by using modern biotechnological tools
Tilapia culture is banned in India as it is a prolific breeder and destroys ecosystem biodiversity. They are in the form of major river systems like Ganges, Yammuna, Brahmputra, Narmada, Mahanadi, Cauvery and Krishna. Increasing population density in the world's megacities forces some people to live in slums (outskirts of the city) e.g.
The increase of city dwellers in a developed (industrialized) country is only 0.8%, while it is 3.6% in the developing country. It lasts four times longer and uses a quarter of the electricity used by the former. They only cut the branches of the trees below the nodes at the time when the trees shed leaves, so that the growth of the trees is not affected.
The success achieved with this law stimulated similar protest movements in other parts of the country to protect forests and other natural ecosystems. v) Narmada Bachao Andolan was initiated by Mrs. Medha Patkar to stop the construction of dams on India's largest westward flowing river Narmada. It is the second most populous country in the world with more than a billion people. India has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world and has made progress in wind, solar, geothermal and biomass energy.
Climate regime, inorganic substances, organic compounds, producers, macroconsumers and microconsumers are the structural components of the ecosystem. Functional ecosystem processes are food chains, energy flow, nutrient cycling, ecological continuity (ecosystem development) and homeostasis. The trophic structure of the ecosystem can be represented graphically in the form of ecological pyramids, the base of the pyramid representing producers and successive levels representing subsequent higher levels.
Nutrients move from the non-living to the living and back to the non-living component of the ecosystem in a more or less circular fashion. Ecological efficiency: Ecological efficiency is defined as the ratio of the percentage of energy flow at different points along the food chain. Euphotic zone: The upper part of the pond, which receives a sufficient amount of light is called the euphotic zone in this part of the pond the rate of photosynthesis is more than respiration.
Aphotic zone: It is that zone of the pond in which light does not penetrate. In dysphotic zone respiration rate is more than photosynthesis. Yammuna biodiversity park on the river bank has attracted these species of birds due to the restoration of their habitat.
