Ecosystem

Environmental studies
Ecosystem
Branch:- COMPUTER
Guided by:- Nilesh Parmar
Sunil Jaganiya
Mali Hetvi (131100107009)
Jain Naveen (131100107010)
Desai Jinal (131100107011)
Jobanputra Harsh (131100107012)

ECOSYSTEM :
It is made up of two words
“ECO” and “SYSTEM” , eco means
environment and system means an
interacting and interdependent
complex.

There are number of definition of ecosystem
1) The organism of any community besides interacting
among themselves, always have functional
relationship with the environment. This structural and
functional system of communities and environment is
called ecosystem.
2) It is a community of interdependent organisms
together with he environment.
3) Any unit that includes all of the organisms in a given
area interacting with the physical environment, so
that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic
structure, biotic diversity and material cycles within
the system.

 Natural Ecosystems: These operate under natural
conditions without any major interference by man.
On the basis of the type of habitant these may be
further divided as:
1. Terrestrial: Forest, Grassland, Desert etc.
2. Aquatic: (A) Fresh water:- Which may be lotic(e.g.
Running water like stream, rivers) or lentic(e.g.
Standing water like pond. Lake). (B) Marine: - Deep
bodies as ocean or shallow ones as seas etc.
 Artificial Ecosystem: These are maintained
artificially by man where by addition of energy and
planned manipulation, natural balance is distributed
regularly, e.g. cropland ecosystem.

1. It provides information about the amount of solar energy
in an area.
2. It provides data about the availability of mineral
elements their utilization and recycling.
3. It provides information about relation between
organisms as well as between organism and abiotic
environment.
4. It provides information of productivity and number of
producers and consumers.
5. The knowledge about pollution, natural resources and
the conservation also can be gathered

1. It is the major structural and functional unit of Ecology. Its
structure is related to its species diversity.
2. Its function is related to energy flow and material cycling through
and within the system.
3. The relative amount of energy is needed to maintain an ecosystem
depend on its structure The more complex structure, the lesser the
energy it needs to maintain itself.
4. It matures by passing from lesser complex to more complex states.
Early stages of each succession have an excess of potential energy
and relatively high energy flow per unit biomass. Later stages have
less energy accumulation and its flow through more diverse
components.
5. Both environment and the energy fixation in any given ecosystem
are limited and cannot be exceeded without causing serious
undesirable effects

• All ecosystem whether terrestrial,
freshwater, marine or man engineered,
have two major components
1. Abiotic Components(Non living)
2. Biotic Components (Living)

* Biotic Factor: A living, biological factor that
may influence an organism or a system.
Example: predation, disease, competition
* Abiotic factor: A non-living, physical factor
that may influence an organism or a system.
Examples: Temperature, salinity, pH, light

* In the natural environment there exists a perfect
balance or equilibrium between the various
organisms, this balance is called as ecological
balance.
* Definition: “A state of dynamic equilibrium within a
community of organisms in which genetic, species
and eco-system diversity remains stable, subject to
stable, subject to gradual changes through natural
succession”
* The ecological balance in an ecosystem is maintain by
the feeding interrelationship between different
organisms of the ecosystem.

* To maintain the life energy is required.
* Energy enters in an ecosystem from solar radiations.
* In Earth atmosphere present solar energy :
15 X108 Cal/m2/year.
* Out of which only 47% of energy reaches earth surface and only
1-5 % of energy reaching the ground is converted into chemical
energy by green plants.
* The plant make food by own by using raw material (water,
salts, C02, sunlight) through photosynthetic organisms and
passes on from one organism to another in the form of food.
* The flow of energy is unidirectional and non cyclic.
* Energy enters the ecosystem from the solar radiations and is
converted into chemical energy by producers, from them
energy passes to the lower trophic level to higher one.

* This is the way energy is governed by laws of
thermodynamics which state that:
1.Energy is neither created nor destroyed
but may be transferred from one from to
another.
2.During energy transfer there is
degradation of energy from a concentrated
form(mechanical, chemical or electrical
etc.)to dispersed form(heat).
* No energy transformation is 100% efficient.
* It is always accompanied by some dispersion
or loss of energy in form of heat.

* Graphical representation of trophic structure
and function of ecosystem, starting with
producers at the base and successive trophic
levels forming the apex is known as
ecological pyramid.
* Ecological pyramids are of three types:
1.Pyramids of numbers
2.Pyramids of Biomass
3.Pyramids of energy

Advantage:-
1. Always upright
2. Based on productivity
3. Give idea of actual amount of energy received at a
trophic level

• In food chain each organism eats the smaller organisms and
is eaten by larger one.
• All those organisms which are interlinked with each other
through food together constitute the ecosystem.
• There are mainly 3 trophic levels:
1. Producers level
2. consumers level
3. decomposer level
• 10% loss energy every stage.
• Food chain depend on number of trophic level.

DEFINATION: Various food chain are often interlinked at
different trophic levels to form a complex interaction
between different species from the point of view of food.
This network like interaction is called as food web.
• It provides more than alternative of food, therefore
increases their chances of survival.
• Charles Elton, a British ecologist, concluded that number
of links a chain rarely exceeds five because in this
process loss of energy occur.
• It is the energy transfer mechanisms determine number
of links in food chain.
• It maintain stability of ecosystem. It maintain the
different patch way of ecosystem.

• Forest ecosystem includes trees, shrubs, algae and
variety of animals, plants and birds.
• Forest found moderate to high rain fall area.
Function of FOREST ECOSYSTEM:-
• Enhance water resources both quantity and quality,
Hydrological cycle depend on it.
• It gives shelter to wild life.
• It acts as sink for reducing C02 content in to
atmosphere.

Abiotic:-
Inorganic and organic substances, soil, atmosphere, climate
Biotic:-
 Producers:-
Plants, species, shrubs, fruits, trees.
 Consumers:-
 Primary consumers :-
Flies, leaf hoppers, bugs, spider, large animals.
 Secondary consumers:-
Lions, Tigers etc.
 Decomposers:-
Microorganisms, bacteria, virus, fungi

• Includes :-Trees and Shrubs
• Rainfall is average.
• About 4.6 X 107 km2 of earth surface is covered with
grass lands which occupy 32% of the plant cover of the
world. Overgrazing of grass land converts into
desertification.
• There are three types of grass land:-
1. Temperature grassland (25-100 cm of annual
rainfall)
2. Tropical grassland( 150 cm of annual rainfall)
3. Polar grassland (serve very cold, strong and
fridge winds along with ice and snow)

• Abiotic:-
Soil and atmosphere like elements (C, H, O, N. P, S) which are
supplied C02,H20, Nitrates, phosphates and sulphates
• Biotic:-
 Producers:-
Grasses, shrubs and few forbs.
 Consumers:-
 Primary consumers:-
Cow buffalo, rabbit, mouse, insects.
Snakes, lizard, birds, fox, jackal
 Decomposers:-
Microorganisms, bacteria, virus, fungi

* Precipitation exceed less than 25 cm per year.
* Atmosphere is dry, poor insulator.
* Desert soil make cool quickly, night is cool.
* There are three major types:-
1. Tropical dessert like Sahara and Namibia in Africa
and Thar desert in Rajasthan. They have only few
species. Wind blow sand dunes are very common.
2. Temperature dessert like Mojave in south California
where temperature are very hot in summer but cool
in winter.
3. Cold desert like Gobi desert in China has cold winters
and warm summers

Abiotic:-
Temperature in very high and rainfall is very low.
Producers:-
Grasses, Shrubs, Trees.
Consumers:-
Insects, reptiles, rodents, birds, camels etc.
Decomposers:-
Poor vegetation, deed organic matter, fungi,
bacteria etc.

•Aquatic ecosystem is classified as
follows:
1.Pond Ecosystem
2.Lake Ecosystem
3.Marine Ecosystem
4.Ocean Ecosystem

• Abiotic:-
Temperature, light, water several inorganic and organic elements (C, H, O,
N. P, S, Ca, Mg), carbohydrates, protein, lipids
• Biotic:-
 Producers:-
Green plants, algae, fungi.
 Consumers:-
Zooplankton (ciliates, flagellates, other crustacean
like copepods and daphnia etc.)
Carnivores: They feed herbivores like fish and insects.
 Tertiary consumers:-
Large fishes they feed smaller fishes
 Decomposers:-
Microorganisms, bacteria, fungi

• Summer Lake Stratification Zones.
• Warm, lighter, circulating surface.
• Sharp drop in temperature.
• Cold, viscous, non circulating
bottom layer

• It includes ocean, estuaries and coral reef
ecosystem OCEAN ECOSYSTEM
• Covers 70-71 % earth surface.
• Survive 2,50,000 species. Serve food for human
and other organisms, huge variety of sea products
and drugs.
• Ocean provides us iron, phosphorus, magnesium,
oil, natural gas, sand and gravel.
• Major sinks of C02 play important role in
biogeochemical cycles

• Abiotic:-
Salt, Ca, Mg, K salts water is buffered, dissolved nutrients.
• Biotic:-
 Producers:-
Phytoplankton, marine plants.
Consumers:-
Fish, molluscs, crustanceans.
Carnivores fishes (herring, shad, Mackerels).
 Tertiary consumers:-
Top consumers like fishes (Cod, Haddock)
Decomposers:-
Fungi, dead organic compound

Ecosystem

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Ecosystem