GE ELECT 4 - Module 3 & 4 Flashcards
Core Ecological Laws & Energy Flow and Material Cycling through the Ecosystem
- a founder of modern ecology and one of its most provocative thinkers and mobilizers in making environmentalism a people’s political
cause. - Responsible for the first celebration of Earth day in the world.
- His famous book, “The Closing Circle,” published in 1970, provides a clear and understandable example of what ecology truly means.
Everything is connected to everything else
Barry Commoner
Food Chain vs. Food Web
A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms where each is eaten by the next in line, showing who eats whom
.
A food web is a more complex network of interconnected food chains
in an ecosystem, showing how different organisms are related through multiple feeding relationships.
takes place in a single organism over the span of its life, resulting in a higher concentration in older individuals
Bioaccumulation
takes place as chemicals transfer
from lower trophic levels to higher trophic levels within a food web, resulting in a higher concentration in apex predators.
Biomagnification
COMPETITION vs PREDATION
-
competition arises when resources are in
limited supply
and organisms strive to obtain these resources. -
Predation often greatly
reduces prey population density
and alters community composition and species diversity.
LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
- First law of thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another.
- Second law of thermodynamics: The entropy of any isolated system always increases.
- The mass in an isolated system can neither be created nor be destroyed but can be transformed from one form to another.
LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS (MATTER)
- The main role of a _________________ is to recycle the elements on the earth. Biogeochemical cycle enables the transformation of matter from one form to another form. The byproducts of biogeochemical cycles assist the functioning of ecosystems.
biogeochemical cycle
This is, of course, simply a somewhat
informal restatement of a basic law of
physics—that matter is indestructible.
Applied to ecology, the law emphasizes
that in nature there is no such thing as
“waste.” In every natural system, what is
excreted by one organism as waste is
taken up by another as food.
Everything must go somewhere
The third law of ecology holds that
any major man-made change in a
natural system is likely to be
detrimental to that system.
Nature knows best
is important for the growth and
development of an ecosystem. It initiates the colonization of new areas and the recolonization of the areas that had been destroyed due to certain biotic and
climatic factors.
Ecological succession
Exploitation of nature, will always
carry an ecological cost and will
inevitably involve the conversion of
resources from useful to useless.
There is no such thing as a free lunch
An ___________ consists of all the organisms living in a community, as well as the abiotic (non-living) factors with which they interact.
It can be visualized as a functional unit of nature, where living organisms interact among themselves and also with the surrounding physical environment.
It range from small, such as an aquarium, to large, such as a lake or forest.
ecosystem
Energy for life begins with the _____
SUN
is the ability to do work.
Energy
is the amount of energy that moves through a food chain.
- aka Calorific flow
Energy flow
AUTOTROPHS vs HETEROTROPHS
- Autotrophs build molecules themselves using photosynthesis or chemosynthesis as an energy source.
- Heterotrophs depend on the biosynthetic output of other organisms.
FLOW OF ENERGY IN THE ECOSYSTEM
Energy and nutrients pass from primary producers
(autotrophs) to primary consumers
(herbivores) to secondary consumers
(omnivores & carnivores) to tertiary consumers
(carnivores that feed on other carnivores).
are consumers that derive their energy from detritus.
- prokaryotes & fungi are important
Detritivores, or decomposers
PRODUCERS
- can make glucose during photosynthesis.
- keep and use most of the energy they make for themselves.
- use cellular respiration to supply the energy for their life functions.
is the process where sugar is converted into carbon dioxide, water, and energy.
Cellular respiration
- The process where the Sun’s energy is converted into chemical energy (Glucose/Sugar).
- Occurs in PLANTS!
- On land, major producers are green plants that contain chlorophyll, which captures light energy.
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Carbon dioxide + water + light energy → sugar + oxygen
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
are organisms that cannot make their own energy.
CONSUMERS