Energy Transfer And Nutrient Cycle Flashcards
What does an ecosystem include?
- all the organisms living in a particular area.
- all the non-living (abiotic) conditions.
- producers.
What are producers?
organisms that make their own food, i.e plants and algae produce their own food in photosynthesis.
What do plants use during photosynthesis to make glucose and other sugars?
- Energy from the sunlight.
- Carbon dioxide (from the atm in land based ecosystems, or dissolved in water in aquatic ecosystems).
What are the sugars produced from photosynthesis used for?
- In respiration, to release energy for growth.
Other than in respiration, what is the rest of the glucose used to make?
- Biological molecules, such as cellulose. They make up the plant’s biomass.
What is biomass?
- The total mass of a living material in a specific area at a given time.
- The chemical energy stored in the plant.
How is energy transferred through the living organisms of an ecosystem?
When organisms eat other organisms, i.e. producers eaten by primary consumers,
primary consumers eaten by secondary consumers,
secondary consumers eaten by tertiary consumers.
What are the three groups organisms are divided into?
- Producers = photosynthetic organisms that manufacture organic substances using water, light energy CO2 and other mineral ions.
- Consumers = obtain energy by feeding on other organims rather than using energy of sunlight directly.
- Saprobionts = group of organisms that break down complex materials in dead organisms into simple ones. They release valuable minerals and elements in a form that can be absorbed by plants and contribute to recycling.
Food chain
Describes feeding relationship in which producers eaten by primary, eaten by secondary, eaten by tertiary.
What is fresh mass?
Easy assess but presence of amount of water makes it unreliable.
How can you overcome the problem of fresh mass?
With it having water its unreliable but measuring the mass of carbon or dry mass overcomes this problem.
However it must be killed so its only a small smaple which may not be representative.
What are the typical units for dry mass?
kg m-2
What are the typical units for biomass?
kg m-2 yr-1
What is dry mass?
Mass of the organism with the water removed.
Biomass can be measured in terms of…
mass of carbon that an organism contains or the dry mass of its tissue per unit area per unit time.
Why is dry mass used as a measure of biomass rather than wet mass?
The water content in living tissue varies.
How can you measure the dry mass?
How can you find out the dry mass of the total population or the area being investigated?
- A sample of an organism is dried, in an oven set as a low temperature.
- Sample is weighted at regular intervals.
- Once mass becomes constant you know the waters all been removed.
- The sample can be scaled up to give the dry mass of the total population or the area being investigated.
What is used to measure the chemical energy stored in dry biomass?
- Estimated using calorimetry.
- The amount of heat given off tells you how mych energy is in it.
Does biomass change over time?
Yes, i.e. trees lose their leaves in winter so biomass changes over the year.
What is energy measured in?
Joules (J)
or
kilojoules (kj)
Explain steps of colorimetry
- Sample of dry biomass burnt.
- Energy released used to heat a known volume of water.
- Change in the temperature of water is used to calculate chemical energy of dry biomass.
What is GPP?
Gross primary production is the total amount of chemical energy converted from light energy by plants, in a given area, in a given time.
When plants respire what happens to the GPP?
Around 50% of the GPP is lost to the environment as heat when plants respire.
What is respiratory loss (R)?
- GPP lost to the environment as heat when plants respire.
What is NPP?
- Net primary production.
- It’s the energy available for plant growth and reproduction.
- The energy is stored in the plants biomass.
- Also the energy available to the organisms at the next stage in the food chain.
What’s the calculation for NPP?
NPP = GPP - R
What are the units for NPP?
kJ m-2 yr-1
Where do consumers store chemical energy?
In their biomass
How do consumers get their energy?
By ingesting plant material, or animals that have eaten plant material.
Not all the chemical energy stored in the consumers food in trasnferred to the trophic level. 90% of total available energy is lost.
How is energy lost/ not all transferred?
- Some isn’t the correct wavelength.
- Some passes straight through.
- Made into biomass when trapped for photosynthesis.
- Not all food eaten so energy it contains is not taken up.
- Some are indigestible - so are egested as faeces so the chemical energy stroed in them parts is lost to the environment.
- Some lost to environment through respiration.
- Some lost through excretion of urine.
Suggest appropriate units for gross productivity. (1)
Unit of energy / mass, per area, per year.
Explain the decrease in gross productivity as the woodland matures. (2)
- Less light / more shading / more competition for light;
- Reduced photosynthesis.
Use your knowledge of succession to explain the increase in biomass during the first 20 years. (3)
- Pioneer species;
- Change in abiotic conditions / less hostile / more habitats / niches;
Accept: named abiotic change or example of change e.g. formation of soil / humus / organic matter / increase in nutrients
Neutral: reference to change in environment unqualified Neutral: more hospitable / habitable / homes / shelters
- Increase in number / amount / diversity of species / plants / animals.
Accept: other / new species (colonise)
Suggest one reason for conserving woodlands. (1)
- Conserving / protecting habitats / niches;
- Conserving / protecting (endangered) species / maintains / increases (bio) diversity;
- Reduces global warming / greenhouse effect / climate change / remove /take up carbon dioxide;
- Source of medicines / chemicals / wood; 5. Reduces erosion / eutrophication.
What is the consumers net production?
Where the energy that’s left over is stroed in the consumer’s biomass and is available to the next trophic level.
What’s the calculation for net production of consumers?
N = I - (F + R)
N= net production
F= Chemical energy lost in faeces and urine.
I= Chemical energy in ingested food.
R= Energy lost through respiration.
How would you calculate the efficiency of energy transfer?
Net production of trophic level/ Net production of previous trophic level (or what they receive?) x 100
As you move up the food chain does the efficiency become more or less?
More, because plants contain more indigestible matter than animals.
Suggest how you could determine the dry mass of a sample of plant material.
- Weigh the dry mass.
- Leave to dry in a oven at 100oC.
- Weigh at regular intervals, once mass constant you know the waters removed.
What is the advantage of using dry mass and not fresh mass to compare the yield of plants?
- Amount of water present.
- Varies affecting fresh mass.
Explain how quadrats could be used to determine the percentage of mussels that had been eaten by starfish on a rocky shore
- Random sampling using quadrats.
- Count amount in it of dead and alive.
- Large number of quadrats.
What do food webs and food chains show?
How energy is transferred through an ecosystem.
What are food chains?
show simple lines of energy transfer.
What is a trophic level?
What each of the stages in a food chain is called.
What are food webs?
show lots of food chains in an ecosystem and how they overlap.