Outline:

A review of ecology and ecosystems,

in a watershed context
Lecture notes, K.Limburg

1. Mental exercise
2. Questions and definitions
3. Different ecological perspectives
approaches and subdisciplines

Watershed Ecology

4. Ecosystems
5. The importance of scale and the
appreciation of complexity

2. Questions.

1. The mental exercise:

Take out a piece of paper, and write a
description of the room you are sitting in,
from an ecological perspective.

Q: What is ecology?

Take 5 minutes.

Ecology (etymological root is the

Greek oikos ()

ecology defined, contd.

Coined by Ernst Haeckl in 1866:

The economy of nature the
investigation of the total relations of
the animal both to its inorganic and
organic environment; including,
above all, its friendly and inimical
relations with those animals and
plants with which it comes directly or
indirectly into contact

in a word, ecology is the

study of all those complex
interrelations referred to by
Darwin as the conditions for
the struggle for existence.

Source: Dodson 1998

Q: What is a system?
Merriam-Websters Dictionary: a group of
units so combined as to form a whole and to
operate in unison

Ecologist H.T. Odum (1983): A system is a group of

parts that are interacting according to some kind of
process, and systems are often visualized as component
blocks with some kind of connections drawn between
them.

Well-expressed by Raymond
Lindeman (1942):
The ecosystem may be formally
defined as the system composed of
physical-chemical-biological
processes active within a spacetime unit of any magnitude, i.e. the
biotic community plus its abiotic
environment.

The many approaches to ecology.

Conceptual/theoretical

Q: What is an ecosystem?
A term coined by Arthur Tansley in a
paper, The Use and Abuse of
Vegetational Concepts and Terms
Ecology 16: 284-307
Tansley was reacting against some attempts to
anthropomorphize plant communities (plant
ecology originally called Plant Sociology!)

Source: Dept of Biology,

Columbia U

the whole system (in the sense of physics),

including not only the organism-complex, but also
the whole complex of physical factors forming
what we call the environment of the biome

More concepts.
Reductionist vs. Holistic
Emergent property
Complexity
Non-linearity

The many subdisciplines

within ecology

Ecological economics

Organismic/physiological
Habitat/ecosystem
Chemical/physical
Application-oriented

Source: Dodson 1998

Q: What makes ecological systems

somewhat different than purely physical or
chemical systems?

To study ecosystems, we must:

- define the system boundaries (often this is driven
by the question we want to address);
- identify the components (usually the key
components, but sometimes we may want to make
exhaustive inventories, such as when we assess
biodiversity); we call these the state variables;
- identify processes;

Q: What are attributes of ecosystems?

Functional groups (the main organismic groups)
Producers
Consumers
Decomposers

Often
grouped
into guilds

- identify external driving forces (forcing functions)

- figure out how to characterize and quantify the
components and processes of interest.

Typically, we represent these as pictures food

web diagrams
These have a long history in ecology, and are
limited usually by artistic creativity and space
on a page (!)

Source: Dodson 1998

Attributes of ecosystems, continued.

Functions of ecosystems
Production (1, 2 ,3 ,) energy flow
Respiration (metabolism)
Nutrient cycling
Succession/change
Imports & exports of energy and materials
(organization/disorganization cycles)

Source: Dodson 1998, after Odum 1972?

Aquatic ecosystem metabolism: an

example of a whole ecosystem function
Photosynthetic production consumes CO2,
produces oxygen
Respiration of organisms consumes O2,
produce CO2
In aquatic ecosystems O2 is dissolved (D.O.),
due to weak attraction between O2 molecule
and H2O molecule
Henrys Law: solubility of a gas in a solvent
(e.g., water) depends on the partial pressure of
the gas above the liquid, depends on
Temperature (and salinity in non-fresh waters)

As photosynthesis generates DO, and

respiration (by plants, animals,
microbes, etc) consumes it, balance of
DO changes over the course of a day
(Diurnal pattern)

At peak production, DO
supersaturates leaves to
atmosphere
At night, DO drawn down
(why?) and becomes
undersaturated taken in
from atmosphere

Oxygen Solubility in Fresh Water at 760 mm Hg pressure

Temperature
C

Oxygen
(mg/L)

Temperature
C

Oxygen
(mg/L)

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

14.16
13.77
13.40
13.05
12.70
12.37
12.06
11.76
11.47
11.19
10.92
10.67
10.43
10.20
9.98
9.76
9.56
9.37

18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35

9.18
9.01
8.84
8.68
8.53
8.38
8.25
8.11
7.99
7.86
7.75
7.64
7.53
7.42
7.32
7.22
7.13
7.04

Refer to autotrophy self-feeding

and heterotrophy feeding by
another source
Important to think about the sources of
matter and energy to a system!

CO2 + H2O + light + nutrients Organic

matter + O2
Also refer to autochthonous (in situ) production
In watersheds where land area > water area,
allochthonous (externally derived) production
very important to aquatic parts of the system

Thus, by knowing the solubility of O2 as

f (T), and being able to correct for diffusion
across the water/air interface, can track the
changes in O2 production & consumption
GPP: gross primary production
R: respiration = Rauto + Rhetero
NPP = net = GPP Rauto
Also refer to
NEP (net ecosystem production)
when cannot separate out Rauto

K.Limburg

Dissolved O2 changes in an urban stream

(Limburg, unpublished data)

10

6
5.5
5

5:00

0:00

9:00

19:00

4:00

14:00

23:00

8:00

18:00

3:00

13:00

22:00

17:00

agricultural

7
6

Jackson Creek

10

5:01

10:01

0:01

9:01

4:01

14:01
19:01

5
23:01

7
6.5

18:01

7.5

8:01
13:01

Dutchess County Airport Stream

9
8

urbanized

19:00

14:00

9:00

4:00

23:00

18:00

13:00

8:00

17:00

3:00

19:00

14:00

9:00

4:00

23:00

18:00

8:00

13:00

3:00

22:00

6
22:00

[DO] mg/L

8.5

10

3:01

Watershed
land use
can make a
difference

22:01

Night

forested

17:01

Day

Dissolved oxygen concentration, mg L-1

10
9.5

Mountain Brook

Erickson et al. in press

Noel Hynes, 1975: The Stream and Its Valley

This paper unified concepts of organism
survival with biogeochemistry and
fluxes of nutrients to streams
Also unified ecology with hydrology
brought forth the concept (then very
new) of variable source flows

Source: Hynes 1975

Large rivers are generally net heterotrophic

Stream fertility affects organism production

Cole and Caraco 2001

Source: Hynes 1975

Forests can differentially hold onto nutrients

Source: Weinstein 1977

Organisms
differentially affect
flows of energy and
matter

Source: Hynes 1975

Other important issues to consider.

Source: Hynes 1975

scale

Scale
Complexity
Cross-systems comparisons
(Value?)

Source: Steele 1995

complexity

Cross-system comparisons

Value?

Source: Odum 1981