Energy Transfer - History Of Energy Transfer Research, The Laws Of Thermodynamics And Energy Transfer In Food Webs, Components Of The Food Web
organisms biomass sun changes
Energy transfer describes the changes in energy (a state function) that occur between organisms within an ecosystem. Living organisms are constantly changing as they grow, move, reproduce, and repair tissues. These changes are fueled by energy. Plants, through photosynthesis, capture some of the Sun's radiant energy and transform it into chemical energy, which is stored as plant biomass. This biomass is then consumed by other organisms within the ecological food chain/web. A food chain is a sequence of organisms that are connected by their feeding and productivity relationships; a food web is the interconnected set of many food chains.
Energy transfer is a one-way process. Once potential energy has been released in some form from its storage in biomass, it cannot all be reused, recycled, or converted to waste heat. This means that if the Sun, the ultimate energy source of ecosystems, were to stop shining, life as we know it would soon end. Every day, the Sun provides new energy in the form of photons to sustain the food webs of Earth.
Additional Topics
In 1927, the British ecologist Charles Elton wrote that most food webs have a similar pyramidal shape. At the bottom, there are many photosynthetic organisms which collectively have a large biomass and productivity. On each of the following trophic levels, or feeding levels, there are successively fewer heterotrophic organisms, with a smaller productivity. The pyramid of biomass and productivity i…
Energy transfers within food webs are governed by the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law relates to quantities of energy. It states that energy can be transformed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. This law suggests that all energy transfers, gains, and losses within a food web can be accounted for in an energy budget. The second law relates to the…
A food web consists of several components; primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and so on. Primary producers include green plants and are the foundation of the food web. Through photosynthesis, primary producers capture some of the Sun's energy. The net rate of photosynthesis, or net primary productivity (NPP), is equal to the rate of photosynthesis…
Much of the food web's energy is transferred to the often overlooked microbial, or decomposer, trophic level. Decomposers use excreted wastes and other dead biomass as a food source. Unlike the main, grazing food web, organisms of the microbial trophic level are extremely efficient feeders. Various species can rework the same food particle, extracting more of the stored energy each time. So…
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