Prof. Dr. Yingzhi Gao Northeast Normal University Phone:13664319768 Email:gaoyz108@nenu

1. Prof. Dr. Yingzhi Gao Northeast Normal University Phone:13664319768 Email:gaoyz108@nenu.edu.cn Introduction to Ecosystem Ecology

2. Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology by F. Stuart Chapin III Pamela A. Matson Harold A. Mooney Textbook:

3. Course Goals • Understand basic principles • Interaction, scale, process, pools and fluxes, trophic, • Integration，regulation and management • Get you involved • Participate!!!

4. Ecosystem ecology provides a mechanistic basis for understanding the Earth System Ecosystems provide goods and services to society Human activities are changing ecosystems (and therefore the Earth System) Why should we care about ecosystem ecology?

5. Complex: human activity influence

7. Study of interactions among organisms and their physical environment as an integrated system What is Ecosystem Ecology?

8. bounded ecological system consisting of all the organisms in an area and the physical environment with which they interact Biotic and abiotic processes Pools and fluxes What is an ecosystem?

9. Living aboveground phytomass Standing dead Excreta (Dung) Decomposition Degistation Animals Litter System output: - water outflow - wind erosion - losses to air (denitrification) - fire (burning dung) - haymaking - animal products (meat, wool,...) Uptake for shoot production System input: - wet and dry deposition - N2-fixation - fertilization - water inflow internal nutrient cycling Retranslocation Immobilization Humification Dead belowground phytomass Living belowground phytomass Humus Mineralization Mineralization Excreta (Urine) Washout Exudation Uptake Decompo- sition Mineral nutrients in soil solution System definitionnutrient cycling

10. Nitrogen fluxes and pools 2004 and 2005 (g/m²) TO 1,0 TO 0.4 Living shoot T79 2.2 - 3.1 TO 1.4 - 2.3 TO 0.1 TO 0.6 Standing dead and litter N-uptake T79 2.2 - 3.1 TO 1.4 - 2.3 TO 0.23 -0.26 T79 2.8 - 2.9 TO 0.05 T79 0.6 Living roots TO 5 T79 7 TO 4.5 T79 8.3 Dead roots TO 330 T79 400 TO 16.7 T79 25.4 TO 3 - 5 T79 5 - 9 Living shoot Sheep uptake Export Sheep Standing dead and litter N-uptake Decomposition Root N-uptake Living roots Soil Humus N (0-20 cm) Dead roots Plant available N Decomposition

11. Trophic relationships determine an ecosystem’s routes of energy flow and chemical cycling Trophic structure refers to the feeding relations among organisms in an ecosystem Trophic level refers to how organisms fit in based on their main source of nutrition, including Ecosystem Structure: Trophic relations

12. Primary producers: autotrophs (plants, algae, many bacteria, phytoplankton), Primary consumers: heterotrophs that feed on autotrophs (herbivores, zooplankton); Secondary consumers heterotrophs that feed on primary consumers; Tertiary consumers (quatenary consumers); Detritivores (organisms that feed on decaying organic matter, bacteria, fungi, and soil fauna) Omnivores (feed on everything), frugivore, fungivore……. Trophic levels

14. An ecosystem is a bounded ecological system that includes all the organisms and abiotic pools with which they interact. An ecosystems is the sum of all of the biological and nonbiological parts that interact to cause plants grow and decay, soil or sediments to form, and the chemistry of water to change. Other Definitions

15. The study of the movement of energy and materials, including water, chemicals, nutrients, and pollutants, into, out of, and within ecosystems. The study of the interactions among organisms and their environment as an integrated systems. Ecosystem Ecology

26. Small scale: e.g., soil core, appropriate for studying microbial interactions with the soil environment, microbial nutrient transformations, trace gas fluxes,… Example 1

27. Stand: an area of sufficient homogeneity with regard to vegetation, soils, topography, microclimate, and past disturbance history to be treated as a single unit. Appropriate for studying whole-ecosystem gas exchange, net primary productivity, plant-soil-microbial nutrient and carbon fluxes Example 2

28. Natural boundaries: sometimes, ecosystems are bounded by naturally-delineated borders (lawn, crop field, lake). Appropriate questions include whole-lake trophic dynamics and energy fluxes (e.g. Lindeman) Example 3

29. Watershed: a stream and all the terrestrial surface that drains into it. Watershed studies use stream as “sample device”, recording surface exports of water, nutrients, carbon, pollutants, etc., from the watershed. Example 4

30. Instantaneous Temporal Scale

31. Instantaneous Seasonal Temporal Scale

32. Instantaneous Seasonal Succession Temporal Scale

33. Instantaneous Seasonal Succession Species migration Temporal Scale

34. Instantaneous Seasonal Succession Species migration Evolutionary history Temporal Scale

35. Instantaneous Seasonal Succession Species migration Evolutionary history Geologic history Temporal Scale

36. Systems approach Top-down approach General approaches

37. Systems approach Top-down approach Comparative approach Bottom-up approach Based on processes General approaches

38. Community ecology Elton Clements Geography Warming, Schimper, Walter Soils Jenny Historical roots

39. Lindeman: Trophic dynamics Odum: Energy and nutrient flows Margalef: Information transfer O’Neill: Hierarchy theory Holling: Resistance and resilience Systems Approach

40. Jenny: State factors Billings, Mooney: Ecophysiology Process Approach

41. The use and abuse of vegetational concepts and terms. Ecology 16: 284-307 First to coin term, “ecosystem” Emphasized interactions between biotic and abiotic factors Argued against exclusive focus on organisms Tansley, British plant ecoslogist

42. Factors of soil formation, 5 state factors that constrain soil and ecosystem development Soil = function of Climate, organisms, parent material, relief (topography) and time, or s=f(clorpt) Many patterns of soil and ecosystem properties correlate with state factors (climate and vegetation structure and function) Hans Jenny, Soil scientist

43. Qualified pools and fluxes of energy in a lake ecosystem emphasizing biotic and abiotic components and exchange Fluxes of energy, critical “currency” in ecosystem ecology, basis for comparison among ecosystems Synthesized with mathematical model Coupling of energy flow with nutrient cycling Ramond Lindeman

44. Central question, how much water and nutrients are needed to produce a given amount of wood? Constructed ecosystem budgets for nutrients, water, and biomass Also included inputs and outputs: exports of logs involves exports of nutrients (thus inputs of nutrients required to maintain productivity One of the first to state the need for more basic understanding of ecosystem function for managing natural resources J. D. Ovington, English forester

45. Used radioactive tracers to study movement of energy and materials through a coral reef, documenting patterns of whole system metabolism System analysis- ecosystem as a life-support system concept H. T. Odum and E. P. Odum

46. Making history in ecosystem ecology Impact of human activities on Earth has led to the need to understand how ecosystem processes affect the atmosphere and oceans Large spatial scale, requiring new tools in ecosystem ecology (fluxes tower measurements of gas exchange over large regions, remote sensing from satellites,global networks of atmospheric sampling, global models of ecosystem metabolism). Earth System and Global Change

47. Integrating systems analysis, process understanding, and global analysis How do changes in the environment alter the controls over ecosystem processes? What are the integrated consequences of these changes? How do these changes in ecosystem properties influence the Earth system? Rapid human-induced changes occurring in ecosystems have blurred any previous distinction between basic research and management application Frontiers in ecosystem ecology

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