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English 2
Department of Biology
Trophic Levels:
You can imagine that the grazing food web would allow us to link organisms one to another in a
straight line, according to their trophic relationships. Such diagrams that show a single path of energy
flow are called food chains.
For example, in the grazing food web, we could find this grazing food chain:
leaves caterpillars tree birds hawks
And in the detrital food web we could find this detrital food chain:
detritus earthworms invertebrates
A trophic level is composed of all the organisms that feed at a particular link in a food chain. In the
grazing food web the trees are producers (first trophic level), the first series of animals are primary
consumers (herbivores) (second trophic level), and the next group of animals are secondary
consumers (carnivores) (third trophic level).
Ecological Pyramids:
The shortness of food chains can be attributed to the loss of energy between trophic levels. In
general, only about 10% of he energy of one trophic level is available to the next trophic level.
Therefore, if a herbivore population consumes 1.000 kg of plant material, only about 100kg is
converted to herbivore tissue, 10kg to first-level carnivores. The so called 10% rule of thumb
explains why a few carnivores can be supported in a food web. The flow of energy with large losses
between successive trophic levels is sometimes depicted as an ecological pyramid.
Energy losses between trophic levels also result in pyramids based on the number of organisms or the
amount of biomass at each trophic level. When constructing such pyramids, problems arise, however.
For example, in the aforementioned grazing food web, each tree could contain numerous caterpillars;
therefore there would be more herbivores than autotrophs! The explanation, of course, has to do with
size. An autotroph can be as tiny as a microscopic alga or as big as a beech tree; similarly, an
herbivore can be as small as a caterpillar or as large as an elephant.
Pyramids of biomass eliminate size as a factor because biomass is the number of organisms
multiplied by their weight. You would certainly expect the biomass of the producers to be greater than
the biomass of the herbivores, and that of the herbivores to be greater than that of the carnivores. In
aquatic ecosystems, such as lakes and open seas where algae are the only producers, the herbivores
may have a greater biomass than the producers when you take their measurements because the
algae are consumed at a high rate. Such pyramids, which have more herbivores than producers, are
called inverted pyramids:
Zooplankton
============ ] relative
Phytoplankton
====
] dry weight
These kinds of problems are making ecologists hesitant about using pyramids to describe ecological
relationships. One more problem is what to do with the decomposers, which are rarely included in
pyramids, even though a large portion of energy becomes detritus in many ecosystems. The flow of
energy through the populations explains in large part the organization of an ecosystem as depicted in
food webs, food chains, and ecological pyramids.
Global Biochemical Cycles
All organisms require a variety of organic and / or inorganic nutrients. For example, carbon dioxide
and water are necessary nutrients for photosynthesizers. Nitrogen is a component of all the structural
and functional proteins and nucleic acids that sustain living tissues. Phosphorus is essential for ATP
and nucleotide production.
Since the pathways by which chemicals circulate through ecosystems involve both living (biotic) and
nonliving (geological) components, they are known as biochemical cycles. For each element, chemical
cycling may involve 1) a reservoir- a source normally unavailable to producers, such as fossilized
remains, rocks, and deep-sea sediments; 2) an exchange pool a source from which organisms do
generally take chemicals, such as the atmosphere or soil; and 3) the biotic community through which
chemicals move along food chains, perhaps never entering a pool.(Chemical nutrients cycle between
these components of ecosystems: Reservoirs, such as fossil fuels, minerals in rocks and sediments in
oceans, are normally relatively unavailable sources, but exchange pools, such as those in the
atmosphere, soil, and water, are available sources of chemicals for the biotic community. When
human activities remove chemicals from reservoirs and make them available to the biotic community,
pollution can result).
With the exception of water, which exists as a gas, a liquid, and a solid, there are two types of
biogeochemical cycles. In a gaseous cycle, exemplified by the carbon and nitrogen cycles, the
element returns to and is withdrawn from the atmosphere as a gas. In a sedimentary cycle,
exemplified by the phosphorus cycle, the element is absorbed from the sediment by plant roots,
passed to heterotrophs, and eventually returned to the soil by decomposers, usually in the same
general area.
Nutrients flow between ecosystems. In the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, nutrients run off from a
terrestrial to an aquatic ecosystem and in that way enrich the aquatic ecosystem. Decaying organic
matter in aquatic ecosystems can be a source of nutrients for intertidal inhabitants such as fiddler
crabs. Seabirds feed on fish but deposit guano (droppings) on land, and in that way phosphorus from
the water is deposited on land. It seems that anything put into the environment in one ecosystem
could find its way to another ecosystem. As proof, scientists find the soot from urban areas and
pesticides from agricultural fields in the snow and animals of the Arctic.
VOCABULARY EXPLORATION
A. Match the following words with their explanations:
1. funnel
a) a small N. American animal of the squirrel family with light and dark marks on its back
2. dissipate
b)the solid material that settles at the bottom of a liquid/ sand, stones, mud, etc. carried by
water or wind and left on the bottom of a lake , river, etc.
3. defecation
c) a device wide at the top and narrow at the bottom used for pouring liquids or powders into
4. assimilate
5. offspring
6. oak
7. chipmunk
8. shrew
9. attributed to
10. sediment
11. guano
12. soot
13. sustain
14. urine
j)to gradually become or make sth become weaker until it disappears/ waste sth like time money
k) maintain/ undergo/
l)the waste liquid that collects in the bladder and that you pass from your body
m) small animal like a mouse with a long nose
n) large tree that produces small nuts called acorns often eaten by animals; it is common in
a small opening