1. Biosphere, Ecosystems, and Communities Project
The Biosphere

2. Autotrophs/Producers
Sunlight is the main energy source for life on earth.
Plants, some algae, and certain bacteria can capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and use that energy to produce food.
What is an autotroph?
What is a producer?

3. Plants, some Algae, and Photosynthetic Bacteria
Photosynthesis – set of chemical reactions that convert carbon dioxide and water into energy-rich carbohydrates (food) and oxygen.

4. Chemosynthetic Bacteria
Organisms which use chemical energy (inorganic molecules; hydrogen sulfide) to produce high-energy carbohydrates (food).

5. Quiz Define Species Population Community
A group of organisms so similar to one another that they can breed and produce fertile offspring.
Population
A group of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the same area.
Community
Assemblages of different populations that live together in a defined region.

6. Quiz
1. What are the two main forms of energy that power living systems?
Light energy, through photosynthesis and chemical energy through chemosynthesis
2. Briefly describe the flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem.
Energy flows in one direction, from autotrophs to heterotrophs and on down the food chain.
3. Show the following as a food chain: omnivore,
autotroph, herbivore.
Autotroph -> Herbivore -> Omnivore

7. Consumers/Heterotrophs
Organisms that rely on other organisms for their energy and food supply.
Herbivores – eat plants
Carnivores – eat other animals or insects
Omnivores – eat plants and animals
Detritivores – feed on plant and animal remains and dead matter

8. Herbivores

9. Omnivores

10. Detritivores

11. Energy Flow
All of the earth’s energy comes from the sun!!! Except for chemosynthetic bacteria
And of all the sun’s energy only about 1% is used by living things.
Energy flows through an ecosystem in one direction, from the sun or inorganic compounds to autotrophs (producers) and then to various heterotrophs (consumers).

12. What is the highest organism in all food chains?
series of steps in an ecosystem in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten.
What is the highest organism in all food chains?

13. Food Webs
network of complex interactions formed by the feeding relationships among the various organisms in an ecosystem

14. Trophic Levels
step in a food chain or food web

15. Ecological Pyramids
diagram that shows the relative amounts of energy or matter within each trophic level in a food chain or food web.
Energy Pyramid
Biomass Pyramid
Pyramid of Numbers

16. Energy Pyramid
Only about 10% of the energy available within one trophic level is transferred to organisms at the next trophic level.

17. Biomass Pyramid
Biomass - total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level.

18. Pyramid of Numbers What if we looked at a tree in a forest?
The pyramid would look upside-down

19. Science/Art Activity
Draw and explain in detail an energy pyramid and a biomass pyramid for any two ecosystems?

20. 2. Name two of the four biogeochemical cycles.
1. How does the way matter flow through an ecosystem differ from the way that energy flows?
Energy flows just one way through an ecosystem: from producers to consumers. Matter moves through the water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycle.
2. Name two of the four biogeochemical cycles.
Hydrologic cycle (water cycle), carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and phosphorus cycle

21. Biogeochemical Cycles
Unlike the one-way flow of energy, matter is recycled within and between ecosystems.
Elements, chemical compounds, and other forms of matter are passed from one organism to another and from one part of the biosphere to another through biogeochemical cycles.

22. The Hydrologic (Water) Cycle
Evaporation – the process by which water changes from its liquid state to its gaseous state.
Transpiration – evaporation from the leaves of plants.

24. Nutrient Cycles
Every living organism needs nutrients (materials, building blocks) to grow and carry out life’s processes.
Like water, nutrients are passed between organisms and the environment through biogeochemical cycles.

25. Carbon Cycle

26. Carbon Cycle
Carbon cycles between various components of the biosphere.
There are four different processes involved in the carbon cycle.
1. Biological Processes
2. Geochemical Processes
3. Mixed Biogeochemical Processes
4. Human Activity

27. Carbon Cycle Biological Processes
Photosynthesis
Respiration
Decomposition

28. Carbon Cycle Geochemical Processes
Volcanoes
Ocean Vents

29. Carbon Cycle Biogeochemical Processes Fossil fuels Coal Oil
Natural gas

30. Carbon Cycle Human Activity
Mining
Burning of Fossil Fuels
Cutting and Burning of Forests
How many of these processes actually take carbon out of the atmosphere?

31. How does the hydrologic cycle work?
What processes are involved in the carbon cycle? How do they affect the carbon cycle?

32. Nitrogen Cycle

33. Nitrogen Cycle
All organisms require nitrogen to make amino acids (building blocks of proteins)
Nitrogen exist in different forms:
Nitrogen Gas (N2) – Makes up 78% of Earth’s Atmosphere
Ammonia (NH3); Nitrate (NO3-) and Nitrite (NO2-) ions which are all found in decaying organisms and organic waste (poop)
Nitrogen also exists in many forms in the ocean
Fertilization also adds nitrogen into the atmosphere is the form of Nitrite

34. Nitrogen Cycle Nitrogen coming out of the atmosphere
1. Only certain bacteria called legumes can use nitrogen gas directly.
These bacteria convert N2 gas into ammonia
This process is known as nitrogen fixation
2. Other bacteria convert ammonia into nitrates and nitrites.
3. Plants then absorb the nitrates and nitrites and then they are passed down the food chain.

35. Nitrogen Cycle Nitrogen going back into the atmosphere
Now that organisms (plants, animals) have nitrogen, how does it get back into the atmosphere
When organisms die decomposers break down the remains putting ammonia back into the soil. Some of this ammonia is converted into nitrates.
Other bacteria convert nitrates back into nitrogen gas

36. Nitrogen Cycle

37. Phosphorus Cycle
Phosphorus is essential to form parts of ATP, DNA, and RNA.
Phosphorus is not as common in the biosphere as nitrogen and carbon.
The reason for this is because phosphorus does not enter the biosphere.
Phosphorus (in the form of phosphate) remains mostly in rocks, soil, and ocean sediments.

38. Phosphorus Cycle 1. Plants absorb phosphate from the soil or water.
2. Phosphate is dissolved and runs through rivers into oceans where it is absorbed by marine organisms
3. When organisms die the phosphate returns to the soil.

39. Explain, in detail, how the nitrogen cycle works.
Explain, in detail, how the phosphorus cycle works.

40. Limiting Nutrient
Primary Productivity - rate at which organic matter is created by producers in an ecosystem.
Limiting Nutrient - single nutrient that either is scarce or cycles very slowly, limiting the growth of organisms in an ecosystem.

41. Algal Bloom
an immediate increase in the amount of algae and other producers that results from a large input of a limiting nutrient.
Eutrophication – the process of depleting oxygen levels in an environment. This can lead

42. What does the word ecology mean to you?

43. Ecosystems and Communities

44. Weather and Climate
Weather – the day-to-day condition of Earth’s atmosphere in a given time and place.
Climate – the average year after year conditions of temperature and precipitation at a given place.

45. What also affects the temperature in the biosphere?
Sunlight and Latitude
What also affects the temperature in the biosphere?

46. What are the three major climate zones?
Polar zone – between 66.5° and 90.0°
Temperate zone – between the polar and tropical zones
Tropical zone – between 23.5° north and 23.5° south

47. Atmospheric Gases CO CO2 CH4 H2O(g)
What also affects the temperature in the biosphere?
Atmospheric Gases CO
CO2
CH4
H2O(g)

48. Heat Transfer
Water currents above
Wind currents right

49. What factors shape ecosystems?
Biotic and Abiotic factors determine the survival and growth of organisms and the productivity of ecosystems in which organisms live.

50. Habitat - the area where an organism lives, including the biotic and abiotic factors that affect the organism.
Resources - any necessity of life, such as water, nutrients, light, food, or space.
Habitat + Resources = ?????
Niche - full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives and the way in which the organism uses those conditions.

51. Warbler Niches
Can you have two separate organisms occupying the same exact niche???

52. NO

53. How do these terms fit together?
Habitat
Resources
Niche
Competitive Exclusion Principle

54. Direct competition (two organisms trying to occupy the same niche) in nature usually results in a winner and a loser.
The competitive exclusion principle states that no two species can occupy the same niche. All ecosystems everywhere follow this rule.

55. Community Interactions
Predation – interaction when one organism feeds on another

56. Community Interactions
Symbiosis – any relationship in which two species live closely together.
There are three types of symbiosis
Mutualism
Commensalism
Parasitism

57. Community Interactions
Mutualism – occurs when both species benefit from the relationship.

58. Community Interactions
Commensalism – occurs when one member of the association benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed.

59. Community Interactions
Parasitism – occurs when one organism lives on or inside another organism and harms it.

60. Ecological Succession
Ecosystems are constantly in flux.
What causes changes in ecosystems?
Ecological Succession – is the series of predictable changes that occurs in an ecosystem over time.

61. Primary Succession
Occurs on surfaces where no soil exists, usually after a volcanic eruption.
1. Bare rock community is populated by an pioneer species (first species to populate an area). Usually lichens (fungus and alga).
2. Pioneer species help to form soil and puts nutrients into soil.
3. Plants begin to grow  then off to the races

62. Primary Succession

63. Secondary Succession
Occurs in an community where everything has been removed but the soil.
What could start primary succession?

64. Succession in a Marine Ecosystem
Whale fall Community
Large whale dies, such as a blue or fin whale, and sinks to the normally barren ocean floor. The whale attracts scavengers and decomposers, including amphipods, hagfishes, and sharks, that feast on the decaying meat.
Within a year, most of the whale’s tissues have been eaten. The decomposition of the whale’s body, however, enriches the surrounding sediments with nutrients, forming an oasis of sediment dwellers, including many different species of marine worms.
When only the whale’s skeleton remains, a third community moves in. Heterotrophic bacteria begin to decompose oils inside the whale bones. They release chemical compounds that serve as energy sources for other bacteria that are chemosynthetic autotrophs. The chemosynthetic bacteria support a diverse community of mussels, limpets, snails, worms, crabs, clams, and other organisms that live on the bones and within the nearby sediments.

65. Biomes
Are groups of ecosystems that have the same climate and dominant communities.
There are 10 major land biomes in the world which are defined by a unique set of abiotic factors—particularly climate—and has a characteristic ecological community.

66. Aquatic Ecosystems
Aquatic ecosystems are determined primarily by the depth, flow, temperature, and chemistry of the overlying water.

67. Freshwater Ecosystems
Can be broken into two types.
Flowing-water ecosystems
Standing-water ecosystems

68. Flowing-Water Ecosystems
Rivers, streams, brooks, creeks
Close to source, high oxygen but little nutrients.
As the water flows it pulls nutrients from eroding rocks and sediments
Plants are more plentiful downstream
Animals are more plentiful when current slows
Organism are well adapted
Hooks on larvae, suckers on fish (catfish), streamlined fish (trout, salmon)

69. Flowing-Water Ecosystems

70. Standing-Water Ecosystem
Organisms that would normally be washed away are able to thrive.
Plankton - tiny, free-floating, weakly swimming organisms that occur in aquatic environments.
Phytoplankton
Zooplankton

71. Freshwater Wetland
ecosystem in which water either covers the soil, or is present at or near the surface of the soil for at least part of the year
Three types
Bogs
Marshes
Swamps

72. Bogs
Formed in depressions left from melting ice sheets thousands of years ago
Lots moss (sphagnum)
Water tends to be very acidic

73. Marshes Shallow wetlands along rivers
Under water for most if not all the time
Tall grasses and cattails

74. Swamp
Water flows very slowly
Looks like flooded forest

75. Estuaries wetlands formed where rivers meet the ocean.
Affected by tides
Usually shallow, photosynthesis and chemosynthesis
Detritus powers the ecosystem
High level of biomass
Great spawning and nursery area
Two types
Salt marsh
Mangrove Swamps

76. Salt Marshes
Temperate zone estuaries

77. Mangrove Swamps Located in tropical zone
Mangrove trees – salt tolerant trees

78. Ecosystems are constantly changing in response to natural and human disturbances. As an ecosystem changes, older inhabitants gradually die out and new organisms move in, causing further changes in the community.
Explain how primary succession occurs on newly exposed surfaces, such as recently deposited volcanic
ash and rock.
Succession can occur in any ecosystem- even in the permanently dark, deep ocean. Explain the three
stages in the succession of a whale-fall community.
What is the difference between primary succession and secondary succession?

79. Marine Ecosystems
Photic Zone – upper layers of the ocean where sunlight is present down to about 200m.
Aphotic Zone – permanently dark chemosynthetic bacteria
The ocean is also divided into zones based on the depth and distance from shore: the intertidal zone, the coastal ocean, and the open ocean.

80. Marine Ecosystems

81. Intertidal Zone
Located at the shore between the High Tide Mark and Low Tide Mark
Submerged part of the time, and exposed part of the time
Crashing waves and strong currents
Seaweed, barnacles, starfish, urchins, snails
Zonation - prominent horizontal banding of organisms that live in a particular habitat.

82. Intertidal Zone

83. Coastal Ocean
Extends from the low tide mark to the edge of the continental shelf.
Falls mostly in the photic zone

84. Coastal Ocean Kelp Forest Coral Reefs Can grow 50cm a day
Cold temperate seas
Coral Reefs
Tropical seas
Within 40m of the surface

85. Open Ocean Oceanic Zone Starts at the end of the continental shelf
Ranges from 500m to 11000m deep
Productivity is low by producers due to low levels of nutrients
But, oceans are so large that 90% of the earth’s productivity comes from the ocean

86. Benthic Zone The ocean floor
Organisms that live in the benthic zone are often refered to as the BENTHOS.
Photosynthetic Organisms
And Chemosynthetic Organisms