ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Basic principles of Ecosystems Functioning

RUBINA SHAUAKT 10031AC025

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION DISCUSSION CONCLUSION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Introduction:

An ecosystem is a complex set of relationships among the living resources, habitats, and residents of an area. It is a community of living and non living things that work together. It includes plants, trees, animals, micro organisms, water, soil and people. Ecosystem have no particular size, it can b as lagre as a desert or a lake or as small as a tree or a pond. Everything that depends on the other species and elements that are also part of that ecological community. The study of ecosystems mainly consists of the study of certain processes that link the living, or biotic, components to the non-living, or abiotic, components. Energy transformations andbiogeochemical cycling are the main processes that comprise the field of ecosystem.

Discussion:

Concept: An ecosystem is a community of organisms interacting with each other and with their environment such that energy is exchanged and system-level processes, such as the cycling of elements, emerge. The ecosystem is a core concept in Biology and Ecology, serving as the level of biological organization in which organisms interact simultaneously with each other and with their environment. Ecosystems embody the concept that living organisms continually interact with each other and with the environment to produce complex systems with emergent properties, such that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" and "everything is connected".

Structure and function: Ecosystems may be observed in many possible ways, so there is no one set of components that make up ecosystems. However, all ecosystems must include both biotic and abiotic components, their interactions, and some source of energy. The simplest (and least representative) of ecosystems might therefore contain just a single living plant within a small terrarium exposed to light to which a water solution containing essential nutrients for plant growth has been added. The other extreme would be the biosphere, which comprises the totality of Earth's organisms and their interactions with each other and the earth systems (abiotic environment). And of course, most ecosystems fall somewhere in between these extremes of complexity. At a basic functional level, ecosystems generally contain primary producers capable of harvesting energy from the sun by photosynthesis and of using this energy to convert carbon dioxide and other inorganic chemicals into the organic building blocks of life. Consumers feed on this captured energy, and decomposers not only feed on this energy, but also break organic matter back into its inorganic constituents, which can be used again by producers. These interactions among producers and the organisms that consume and decompose them are called trophic interactions, and are composed of trophic levels in an energy pyramid, with most energy and mass in the primary producers

at the base, and higher levels of feeding on top of this, starting with primary consumers feeding on primary producers, secondary consumers feeding on these, and so on. By definition, ecosystems use energy and cycle matter, and these processes also define the basic ecosystem functions. Energy input to ecosystems drives the flow of matter between organisms and the environment in a process known as biogeochemical cycling.

The living organisms in an ecosystem can be divided into three categories: producers, consumers and decomposers. They are all important parts of an ecosystem. Producers are the green plants. They make their own food. Consumers are animals and they get their energy from the producers or from organisms that eat producers. There are three types of consumers: herbivores are animals that eat plants, carnivores are animals that eat herbivores and sometimes other carnivores and omnivores are animals that eat plants and other animals. The third type of living organism in an ecosystem are the decomposers. Decomposers are plants and animals that break down dead plants and animals into organic materials that go back into the soil. Which is where we start.

Energy flow: The main parts of ecosystem includes soil, atmosphere, heat and light from the sun, water and living organisms. The transformations of energy in an ecosystem begin first with the input of energy from the sun. The heat and light from the sun are critical parts of an ecosystem. The sun's heat helps water evaporate and return to the atmosphere where it is cycled back into water. The heat also keeps plants and animals warm. Without light from the sun there would be no photosynthesis and plants wouldn't have the energy they need to make food.

Soil is a critical part of an ecosystem. It provides important nutrients for the plants in an ecosystem. It helps anchor the plants to keep them in place. Soil absorbs and holds water for plants and animals to use and provides a home for lots of living organisms. The atmosphere provides oxygen and carbon dioxide for the plants and animals in an ecosystem. The atmosphere is also part of the water cycle. Without the complex interactions and elements in the atmosphere, there would be no life at all. Without water there would be no life. Water is a large percentage of the cells that make up all living organisms. In fact, you may have heard that humans can go longer without food than they can without water. It's true! Without water all life would die. In addition to being an important part of cells, water is also used by plants to carry and distribute the nutrients they need to survive.

Forest ecosystem: A forest ecosystem is one major ecologic unit that exists as "home" for a community of both native or introduced, classified organisms. It is just one of a number of unique ecosystems including prairies, deserts, polar regions and great oceans, smaller lakes and rivers. It typically is associated with land masses covered in trees and those trees are often classified by foresters into forest cover types. A forest community is much more than just the sum of its trees. A forest is a system that supports interacting units including trees, soil, insects, animals, and man. The common idea for many people is that forests are just a collection of trees. However, they are much more than that. They are a complex, functional system of interacting and often interdependent biological, physical, and chemical components, the biological part of which has evolved to perpetuate itself. This complexity produces combinations of climate, soils, trees and plant species unique to each site, resulting in hundreds of different forest types around the world. Logically, trees are an important component for the research in forest ecosystems, but the wide variety of other life forms and abiotic components in most forests means that other elements, such as wildlife or soil nutrients, should also be the focal point in ecological studies and management plans to be carried out in forest ecosystems.

Grassland ecology:

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants. A biological community that contains few trees or shrubs, is characterized by mixed herbaceous (nonwoody) vegetation cover, and is dominated by grasses or grasslike plants. Mixtures of trees and grasslands occur as savannas at transition zones with forests or where rainfall is marginal for trees. Grasslands occur in regions that are too dry for forests but that have sufficient soil water to support a closed herbaceous plant canopy that is lacking in deserts. Significant portions of the world's grasslands have been modified by grazing or tillage or have been converted to other uses. The most fertile and productive soils in the world have developed under grassland, and in many cases the natural species have been replaced by cultivated grasses (cereals). Different kinds of grasslands develop within continents, and their classification is based on similarity of dominant vegetation, presence or absence of specific dominant species, or prevailing climate conditions.

Desert ecosystem: Deserts host plants and animals living in what strikes many humans as oppressive environments. Solar energy that green plants convert into food fuels life here. Although in most ecosystems plants compete for sunlight, here most plants are adapted to minimize the effects of too much solar energy. Many animals get their energy by eating plants, but desert plants give up the fruit of their production very reluctantly. Sharp spines and chemical-laden leaves discourage plant-eaters. Aquatic ecosystem: In aquatic ecosystem, the sun hits the water and helps the algae grow. Algae produces oxygen for animals like fish, and provides food for microscopic animals. Small fish eat the microscopic animals, absorb oxygen with their gills and expel carbon dioxide, which plants then use to grow. If the algae disappeared, everything else would be impacted. Microscopic animals wouldn't have enough food, fish wouldn't have enough oxygen and plants would lose some of the carbon dioxide they need to grow.Aquatic ecosystems contribute to a large proportion of the planet's biotic productivity as about 30% of the world's primary productivity comes from plants living in the, ocean. These ecosystems also include wetlands located at lakeshores, riverbanks, the ocean shoreline, and any habitat where the soil or vegetation is submerged for some duration.

Conclusion:

Ecosystems are made up of abiotic (non-living, environmental) and biotic components, and these basic components are important to nearly all types of ecosystems. Ecosystem Ecology looks at energy transformations and biogeochemical cycling within ecosystems. Energy is continually input into an ecosystem in the form of light energy, and some energy is lost with each transfer to a higher trophic level. Nutrients, on the other hand, are recycled within an ecosystem, and their supply normally limits biological activity. So, "energy flows, elements cycle". Energy is moved through an ecosystem via a food web, which is made up of interlocking food chains. Energy is first captured by photosynthesis (primary production). The amount of primary production determines the amount of energy available to higher trophic levels.

Acknowledgement:

I would like to thank my faculty of Environmental Studeis Ar.Haji sir for giving me this opportunity to study about the ecosystem and understand it at grassroots level..