MODULE -5

Earth – Life Support System

Ecosystem Components

Energy flow in ecosystem

 Earth’s Life-Support System
The earth’s life-support system consists of four
main spherical systems that interact with one
another

1. Atmosphere (air),

2. Hydrosphere (water),

3. Geosphere (rock, soil, and sediment)

4. Biosphere (living things)

 Earth’s Life-Support System

Atmosphere

The atmosphere is a thin spherical envelope of

gases surrounding the earth’s surface.

(a) Troposphere- Extends to about 17 kilometers

above sea level
7 kilometers at north and south poles

It contains air that we breathe, consisting

nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%).
 Earth’s Life-Support System
Atmosphere
(a) Troposphere-It contains air that we breathe,
consisting nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%).

• The remaining 1% of the air includes water vapor, carbon dioxide,

and methane, all of which are called greenhouse gases, which absorb
and release energy that warms the lower atmosphere.

• Without these gases, the earth would be too cold for the
existence of life
 Earth’s Life-Support System

Atmosphere

The atmosphere is a thin spherical envelope of

gases surrounding the earth’s surface.

Stratosphere- 17–50 kilometers above the earth’s

surface,
Its lower portion holds enough ozone (O3)
gas
 Earth’s Life-Support System

Hydrosphere

The Hydrosphere consists of all of the water on

or near the earth’s surface

It is found as water vapor in the atmosphere, liquid

water on the surface and underground, and ice—polar ice,
icebergs, glaciers, and ice in frozen soil
 Earth’s Life-Support System
Geosphere

The Geosphere consists of

the earth’s intensely hot core,
a thick mantle composed mostly
of rock, and a thin outer crust
 Earth’s Life-Support System
Biosphere

The biosphere consists of the

parts of the atmosphere,
hydrosphere, and geosphere
where life is found.

One important goal of

environmental science is to
understand the interactions
that occur within this thin
layer of air, water, soil, and
organisms.
 Factors Sustain the Earth’s Life

1. The one-way flow of high-quality energy from the sun,

2. The cycling of nutrients

3. Biodiversity

4. Gravity,
which allows the planet to hold onto its atmosphere and
helps to enable the movement and cycling of chemicals
through air, water, soil, and organisms.
 Sun, Earth, Life, and Climate
• Only a very small amount of this output of energy reaches
the earth—a tiny sphere in the vastness of space.

• The solar energy that reaches the atmosphere lights the

earth during daytime, warms the air, and evaporates and
cycles water through the biosphere

• Much of the high-quality solar radiation that reaches

our planet is reflected by its atmosphere back into space
as lower-quality energy in the form of longer-wavelength
infrared radiation.
 Sun, Earth, Life, and Climate

• As this infrared radiation travels back from the

earth’s surface into the lower atmosphere, it encounters
greenhouse gases

• greenhouse gas molecules to vibrate and release

infrared radiation with even longer wavelengths. The
vibrating gaseous molecules then have higher kinetic energy,
which helps to warm the lower atmosphere and the earth’s
surface.
• Ecology is the science that focuses on how
organisms interact with one another and with their
non-living environment of matter and energy.

• Ecologists study interactions within and among five of

these levels—

1. organisms
2. populations
3. communities
4. ecosystems
5. biosphere
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Ecosystems have

1. Living component (biotic)

e.g. plants, animals, microbes, and all
other organisms.

2. Non-living components (abiotic)

e.g., water, air, nutrients, rocks, heat, and solar
energy
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

1. Living component (biotic)

e.g. plants, animals, microbes, and all
other organisms.

Ecologists assign every type of organism in an ecosystem

to a trophic (feeding) level, depending on its source of
food or nutrients.

1. Producers
Primary consumers

2. Consumers Secondary consumers

Tertiary consumers

3. Decomposers
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Living component (biotic)

1. Producers

Producers, sometimes called autotrophs (self-feeders),

make the nutrients they need from compounds
and energy obtained from their environment

Through a process called chemosynthesis, a few producers,

mostly specialized bacteria, can convert simple inorganic
compounds from their environment into more complex
nutrient compounds without using sunlight.
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Living component (biotic)

2. Consumers
• consumers,or heterotrophs (“other-feeders”), that cannot
produce the nutrients they need through photosynthesis
or other processes.

• All consumers (including humans) depend on producers

for their nutrients.

Primary consumers, or herbivores (plant eaters),

are animals that eat mostly green plants.
Examples are caterpillars, giraffes
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Living component (biotic)

2. Consumers

• Secondary consumers (or Carnivores), are

animals that feed on the flesh of other animals
Examples are spiders, lions

• Tertiary (or higher-level) consumers that feed on the

primary and secondary consumers.

• Omnivores eat both plants and other animals.

 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Living component (biotic)

3. Decomposers

Decomposers (detritivores) are consumers that, in the

process of obtaining their own nutrients, release nutrients
from the wastes or remains of plants and animals and then
return those nutrients to the soil, water, and air for reuse
by producers

Examples are Bacteria and fungi

Without decomposers, the planet would be overwhelmed

with plant litter, animal wastes, dead animal bodies, and
garbage.
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Living component (biotic)

aerobic respiration

• In most cells, energy is released by aerobic respiration, which

uses oxygen to convert glucose (or other organic nutrient
molecules) back into carbon dioxide and water
 What Are the Major Components of an Ecosystem

Living component (biotic)

anaerobic respiration

• Some decomposers get the energy they need by breaking down

glucose (or other organic compounds) in the absence of oxygen.
This form of cellular respiration is called anaerobic respiration,
or fermentation

• end products for this process are methane, ethanol, acetic acid
and hydrogen sulfide.
Earth – Life Support System
Atmosphere (air),
Hydrosphere (water),
Geosphere (rock, soil, and sediment)
Biosphere (living things)

Ecosystem Components
Living component (biotic)
Non-living components (abiotic)

Energy flow in ecosystem

 What Happens to Energy in an Ecosystem?

Energy Flows through Ecosystems in Food Chains and

food webs

Food Chains

A sequence of organisms, each of which serves as a

source of food or energy for the next, is called a food
chain.

Food chain determines how chemical energy and nutrients

move along the same pathways from one organism to
another through the trophic levels in an ecosystem
Every use and transfer of energy by organisms involves a
loss of some degraded high-quality energy to the
environment as heat (low-quality energy)
 What Happens to Energy in an Ecosystem?

Energy Flows through Ecosystems in Food Chains and

food webs

Food webs

organisms in most ecosystems form a complex network of

interconnected food chains called a food web

Food chains and webs show how producers, consumers,

and decomposers are connected to one another as
energy flows through trophic levels in an ecosystem
 What Happens to Energy in an Ecosystem?

Usable Energy Decreases with Each Link in a Food

Chain or Web

• In a food chain or web, chemical energy stored in

biomass is transferred from one trophic level to
another.

• As energy flows through ecosystems in food chains

and webs, there is a decrease in the amount of
high-quality chemical energy available to organisms
at each succeeding feeding level
 Gross primary productivity (GPP)

• Gross primary productivity (GPP) is the rate at which an

ecosystem’s producers (usually plants) convert solar
energy into chemical energy in the form of biomass
found in their tissues.

• GPP is usually measured in terms of energy production

per unit area over a given time span, such as kilocalories
per square meter per year (kcal/m2/yr).
 Net primary productivity (NPP)

• Net primary productivity (NPP) is the rate at which

producers use photosynthesis to produce and store
chemical energy minus the rate at which they use some of
this stored chemical energy through aerobic respiration

• NPP measures how fast producers can make the chemical

energy that is stored in their tissues and that is potentially
available to other organisms (consumers) in an ecosystem.
 Net primary productivity (NPP)

• On land, tropical rain forests have a very high net

primary productivity because of their large number
and variety of producer trees and other plants.

• When such forests are cleared or burned to plant

Crops, there is a sharp drop in the net primary
productivity and a loss of many of the diverse array of
plant and animal species.
 Net primary productivity (NPP)

• As we have seen, producers are the source of all nutrients in

an ecosystem that are available for the producers themselves
and for the consumers and decomposers that feed on them.

• Only the biomass represented by NPP is available as nutrients

for consumers, and they use only a portion of this amount.

• Thus, the planet’s NPP ultimately limits the number of

consumers (including humans) that can survive on the earth.