“Biosphere”

Rudolf, I’m thinking of living

somewhere where there is no

one but me. What do you

think?

Are you out of your mind?! Here is where we belong! This is our

righteous place.

to

This is where our friends, family, and all the things

we need exist. We should

learn to live together for our benefit. We are all

parts of this BIOSPHERE.

I guess you’re right.

Speaking of, we need

to finish our report about the

biosphere!

The next day…

Today, Rudolf and I will discuss about the Biosphere.

The Biosphere

the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation) and self-regulating system.

What is an Ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving, physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight.

Fig.1

An illustration of an Ecosystem.

Types of Ecosystems

1. Natural  Terrestrial ecosystem  Aquatic ecosystem a. Marine b. Fresh Water2. Artificial-ecosystems created by

humans.

Natural Ecosystems

1.Terrestrial ecosystemis an ecosystem found only on

a landform. Four primary terrestrial ecosystems exist: 

tundra, taiga, temperate deciduous forest and grassland.

tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the KildinSami word tūndâr  uplands or treeless mountain tract.

Fig.2

A Tundra in Greenland

Taiga, also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests. Taiga is the world's largest land biome, and makes up 29% of the world's forest cover; the largest areas are located in Russia and Canada.

Fig.3

A taiga in Alaska

Temperate deciduous forestTemperate Deciduous forest -A temperate deciduous forest

consists of trees that lose their leaves every year. Many well-known animals live in this kind of forest. Some examples are the Eastern Gray Squirrel, bears, beavers, foxes, deer, rats, snakes, mice, wolves, raccoons, and large birds of prey like red-tailed hawks.

Fig. 4

A temperate forest in Germany

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae) and other herbaceous (non-woody) plants. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica but Grasslands are found in most ecological regions of the Earth.

Fig.5

(From left Clockwise)Grasslands from:•California•Masbate•Kansas•Tibet

2. Aquatic ecosystem An aquatic ecosystem is an

ecosystem located in a body of water. Communities of organisms that are dependent on each other and on their environment live in aquatic ecosystems. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are:

marine ecosystems freshwater ecosystems

Marine ecosystems are among the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems. They include oceans, salt marsh and intertidal ecology, estuaries and lagoons, mangroves and coral reefs, the deep sea and the sea floor.

Fig.6

A marine ecosystem

Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems. They include lakes and ponds, rivers, streams and springs, and wetlands. They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a larger salt content. Freshwater ecosystems can be divided into lentic ecosystems (still water) and lotic ecosystems (flowing water).

Fig.7

An angel fish, a fish found in the fresh waters of Australia.

What are the components of an ecosystem?

1.) Abiotic Components These include the non-living,

physico - chemical factors such as air, water, soil and the basic elements and compounds of the environment.

Abiotic factors are broadly classified under three categories.

 It is all the organisms in a given area, along with the nonliving (abiotic) factors with which they interact; a biological community and its physical environment.

Three broad classifications of Abiotic factors

Climatic factors which include the climatic regime and physical factors of the environment like light, humidity, atmospheric temperature, wind, etc.

Edaphic factors which are related to the

structure and composition of soil including its physical and chemical properties, like soil and its types, soil profile, minerals, organic matter, soil water, soil organisms.

Inorganic substances like water, carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus and so on. Organic substances like proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, humic substances etc.

2.) Biotic componentsThe Biotic environment involves

all the living organisms that come regularly into contact with each other, how they interact and their mutual influences.

The biotic components of an ecosystem includes:

ProducersProducers are organisms which are able to manufacture organic compounds from inorganic substances from their environment. Green plants are able to do this by means of photosynthesis, where the sun provides the necessary energy. Therefore these green plants are the autotrophic organisms or primary producers in most ecosystems.

ConsumersThis component is made up of organisms which cannot make organic compounds from inorganic substances. They are dependant upon autotrophic organisms and are the consumers or heterotrophic organisms in an ecosystem.

The consumers are further subdivided according to their diet, into:

herbivores or plant eaters which are the primary consumers.

carnivores or meat eaters which are the secondary consumers; some carnivores are called predators which catch their prey, kill it and then eat it; others are called scavengers which usually eat what is left by the predators.

Fig.8a•An image of a fox(a carnivore)

Fig.8b•An image of a goat(a herbivore)

omnivores eat plant and animal material and can be primary, secondary and tertiary consumers simultaneously; a human being is a good example of an omnivore.

Fig.9

An image of a human being(an omnivore)

Feeding relationship

These are the relations between the predator and its prey. Meaning to say, it is the ways of how energy and consumption takes place in the natural world.

Types of feeding relationships

1. Food chain food chain is a linear sequence of

links in a food web starting from a tropic species that eats no other species in the web and ends at a tropic species that is eaten by no other species in the web.

Fig. 10

An example of a food chain.Osprey feed on northern pike, which in turn feed on perch which eat bleak that feed on freshwater shrimp feeding with seaweeds.

Sun

2. Food web- food web depicts feeding connections (who eats whom) in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called tropic levels:

 autotrophs- producers  heterotrophs -an organism that

cannot  fix carbon and uses organic carbon for growth.

Fig.11

Click icon to add pictureA coastal food web in Alaska.

Sun

3. Ecological pyramid  Ecological pyramid is a graphical

representation designed to show the biomass or biomass productivity at each tropic level in a given ecosystem.

Fig.12

An example of an ecological pyramid.

Plants are feeded by the giraffes which is ate by the Lion which is the apex predator.

Tropic levels

the position it occupies in a food chain. A food chain represents a succession of organisms that eat another organism and are, in turn, eaten themselves. The number of steps an organism is from the start of the chain is a measure of its trophic level.

 Food chains start at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, move to herbivores at level 2, predators at level 3 and typically finish with carnivores or apex predators at level 4 or 5.

To make it simple….

5- Apex Predators

1- Primary producers

2-Herbivores

3-Carnivores

or

4-Apex Predators

Fig.13

The flow of energy in an Ecosystem

In ecology, energy flow, also called the calorific flow, refers to the flow of energy through a food chain. In an ecosystem, ecologists seek to quantify the relative importance of different component species and feeding relationships.

Fig.14

The energy flow in an ecosystem.

The energy pyramid

An energy pyramid is a graphical representation designed to show the biomass or biomass productivity at each tropic level in a given ecosystem.

Biomass

is the amount of living or organic matter present in an organism. Biomass pyramids show how much biomass is present in the organisms at each tropic level, while productivity pyramids show the production or turnover in biomass.

The 7 environmental principles

1. Nature knows best.2. All forms of life are important.3. Everything is connected to everything else.4. Everything changes.5. Everything must go somewhere.6. Ours is a finite earth.7. Nature is beautiful and we are stewardsof God’s creation.

Christian L. ChuaRay Rudolf Pastrana

Prepared by: