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Energy Flow

Explore how energy moves through ecosystems via food chains, energy pyramids, and biological magnification. Learn about producers, consumers, decomposers, and the laws of conservation of matter and energy.

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Energy Flow

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  1. Energy Flow How does energy move through the ecosystem? http://www.armofthesea.info/images/landscapes/crommet_lg.jpg

  2. Conservation: • Law of Conservation of Matter - • In any ordinary physical or chemical change, matter is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. • Law of Conservation of Energy - • In any ordinary physical or chemical change, energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.

  3. Energy: • 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: • When energy is changed from one form to another, some energy will be lost to the larger environment. • Nothing is ever 100% efficient. • This is due to entropy (nature’s tendency towards randomness).

  4. How does energy flow through ecosystems? • Food Chain: A simple diagram of one string of feeding relationships in an ecosystem, showing the direction of the transfer of energy in that system. Sun Grass Rabbit Wolf Bacteria Soil

  5. What are the parts of a food chain? Producers • Organisms that make their own food from inorganic molecules and energy. • eg. Plants, blue-green algae • Most accomplish energy building through photosynthesis • H20 + Sunlight + CO2 Sugar + O2 Inorganic Molecules = molecules that are not part of a living organism Energy is almost always from the sun (very rare exceptions)

  6. Consumers • Organisms that cannot make own food. • eg. all animals, fungi and most bacteria • Obtain energy by eating other organisms — through a process called cellular respiration • Sugar + O2  CO2 + H20 + energy

  7. Decomposers • Bacteria and fungi that break down organic material Decomposers are essential to ecosystem health because they recycle nutrients back for producers to reuse.

  8. Food Web: • a group of food chains showing all of the feeding relationships in an ecosystem.

  9. Food Web Sun HumanWolfFox Sheep Bacteria RabbitMiceDeer GrassFlowerCarrots Nutrient Rich Soil

  10. Many toxins in the person Many toxins in the water Biological Magnification • Increasing concentration of a substance in organisms in higher trophic levels in a food chain or web.

  11. Biological Magnification- accumulation of increasing amounts of toxin within tissues of organisms. Video on Biological Magnification

  12. Food Webs con’t: So, all producers are at the same trophic level and all primary consumers are at the next trophic level. • Trophic level — a layer in the feeding relationship of an ecosystem, one link in the food chain/web. • Biomass — total amount of organic material present in a trophic level. Organic = is currently living or lived in the past

  13. Energy Pyramids • Another way to look at trophic levels. • a diagram showing the relative amounts of energy/biomass in the different trophic levels. • Lowest trophic levels are at the bottom: Producers have the greatest biomass. http://www.vtaide.com/png/foodchains.htm http://www.earthforce.org/files/1284_image2_Energy_Pyramid_for_Galvbay.jpg

  14. Example of an Energy Pyramid 1 MAN 10 FOXES 100 RABBITS 1000 Bunches of GRASS MAN 0.1% Energy Lost during conversion to heat, waste…. 10% 100 % of the sun’s energy FOX 90% 1% 10% Rabbit RABBIT 90% 10% 10% Grass 90% - The decreasing size of the pyramid shows that each level of the pyramid has a smaller and smaller number of those organisms.

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