Marine Ecosystems Flashcards
What is Ecology ?
Ecology is the scientific study that looks at the relationships and the way living organisms interact with each other and their environment.
Ecology is a brand of biology.
E.g. Humans are apart of an ecosystem. We interact with each other and other living organisms in our environment, therefore we are apart of an ecosystem.
Explain what an Ecosystem is and what it is made up of.
An Ecosystem is another term for Ecology as they are both studies of relationships that exist between organisms and their environment.
Ecosystems are made up of Abiotic components and Biotic components.
Abiotic components are the non-living physical features and inorganic compounds of the environment. E.g. temperature, water, air, wind, atmosphere, sediment, light and chemical elements. These are non-living but crucial to any and all ecosystems.
Biotic components are the living organisms. These are best known as Producers, Consumers and Decomposers.
What is the role of Autotrophic Components.
Are they Producers, Consumers or Decomposers?
Autotrophs are producers, they are organisms such as algae, plants and some bacteria.
There role in the ecosystem is to create their own food by using unusable energy from the sun which in turn causing a chemical reaction creating sugar and oxygen. They do this through a process called “photosynthesis”.
By creating their own food they then become a energy supply for other organisms and marine life later in the food chain.
How does photosynthesis work?
Photosynthesis is where organisms take unusable energy from the sun and convert it into sugar and oxygen.
- Take the unusable energy from the sun.
- Convert it to a chemical energy also known as carbohydrates such as glucose.
- As glucose is a sugar, the plants, algae and bacteria use the sugar and oxygen (which has been produced as a waste product of this reaction) and use it as a source of growth.
- They then grow and become the very thing that makes up an ecosystem.
Why are producers so important to an ecosystem?
And how do they then share this energy with other organisms/life?
Producers are the very basic of an ecosystem, they give other life the energy needed to survive. They are the only things that are capable of creating their own food simply from the sun.
They share this energy when consumers come into play. Because consumers can not produce their own food they will eat the producers (such as plants, algae and bacteria), they then rearrange and decompose the compounds manufacture by ingesting other organisms or particles of organic matter.
what are the three (3) factors in which plants need to create sugar and oxygen?
They need CO2 (carbon dioxide)
Water
And sunlight
= the reaction from all of these then creates sugar and oxygen
Explain the process in-depth of exactly how plants use CO2, Water and Sunlight to create Sugars and Oxygen.
Step 1. CO2 is drawn out from the plants leaves
Step 2. Water is taken up through the roots of the plants
Step 3. Sunlight is the energy required to drive the chemical reaction
Therefor creating oxygen and sugars (photosynthesis)
What are Heterotrophic Components?
Are they Producers, Consumers or Decomposers?
Heterotrophic Components are the Consumers of the trophic levels that exist within an ecosystem.
They are the organisms which can not produce their own food. Because of this they rely on the autotrophic components/producers for their energy.
Basically, they rearrange and decompose the compounds manufactured by ingesting other organisms or particles of organic matter.
Give me examples of different types of consumers and explain briefly what they feed on and types of each consumer group.
Primary Consumers (the small guys): They are herbivores. Herbivores feed strictly off algae, plants and autotrophic bacteria An example of a herbivore is zooplankton.
Secondary Consumers (the high-schooler’s):
They are primary carnivores (kinda like the beginner guys-still learning) which feed mainly on herbivores
An example of a primary carnivore is fish, small fish.
Tertiary Consumers (these guys graduated):
They are carnivores!
They feed mainly on other carnivores.
An example of a tertiary consumer/carnivore is a shark.
What are Decomposers?
Explain their role.
Decomposers are also apart of the Heterotrophic Components/Consumers as they feed off dead animals and plants.
Decomposers are the fungi and bacteria which break down the compounds of dead animals and plants, absorbing some of the products.
They then release the simple inorganic substances (which are non-useful to living organisms now as they provide no nutrition) and become useful again by the Autotrophs (autotrophs make them useful by turning it back into energy).
Through this you will begin to see that there are a lot of interrelationships in any ecosystem which can be seen in a marine food web chart.
What are the 5 characters that the Marine Web Life are made up of?
Very briefly explain each.
The Marine Web Life is created through Climate, Primary Producers, Consumers, Sediments and Decomposers.
Climate - micro algae can modify change
Primary Producers - micro algae can remove CO2 from the atmosphere making it available to other trophic levels
Consumers - trophic efficiency; number of trophic levels (waste or not of energy within the system)
Sediments - sediments or the ocean floor store organic matter or inorganic carbon - biological carbon pump
Decomposers - decomposing material sediment to the bottom of the ocean
What is a Food Web and what does it represent?
Food webs are charts which show interconnected FEEDING relationships in an ecosystem.
Food webs are more complex than a simple food chain diagram as they show more relationships between the living parts of the ecosystem.
Food web’s can change due to organisms feeding off more than one trophic level, changes in species life history stages or even the availability of food sources.
What is a Food Chain and what does it represent?
Food Chain Diagrams show how each living thing gets it food in a more simple outlook.
A Food Chains starts with Primary producers (herbivores - algae, plants & autotrophic bacteria) and ends with Animals (carnivores - tertiary consumers) rather than starting with the process of photosynthesis and so on.
Some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals.
For example,
A simple food chain links the diatoms (a common type of phytoplankton to micro algae) to zooplankton to fish.
Each link in this chain provides energy via carbon from the next link, which is called: trophic level.
Food Chains are cyclic meaning that no matter where on the food chain on organism lies, it will eventually be recycled/eaten and become valuable to other elements within the food chain.
Explain the basics of Ecological Concepts.
These need to be basic, universally accepted and essential to any ecosystem.
- The Sun is the source of ALL Energy
- Everything is connected to everything else
- Everything must fit in to How and Where it lives
- ALL Ecosystems are Dynamic
- Ecosystem Dynamics
Briefly explain what each of the 5 basic Ecological Concepts are/what they mean.
- EVERYTHING MUST FIT IN TO HOW & WHERE IT LIVES:
‘Adaption’ is the key word in this concept. Unless a species adapts to a niche, it will have limited potential to survive. Example, there is a process known as ‘Natural Selection’ which explains how some organisms in a species have inherited certain variations that give them an advantage over others for survival. Over time, those individuals that are genetically inferior are gradually eliminated. - ECOSYSTEM DYNAMICS:
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every event there is a consequence. There is a delicate balance between producers and consumers, which allows both to exist. If this interrelationship becomes and remains unbalanced, one and/or both members of the interrelationship will die. The introduction of new elements into the ecosystem, whether they are biotic or abiotic, will have an effect on the way that the system functions. The depth to which this adversely affects its habitants depends on two factors; the TOXICITY of the introduced element and the RESILIENCY of the system to recover from these effects. - THE SUN IS THE SOURCE OF ALL ENERGY:
ALL energy in any organism originally came from the sun. For example, a producer converts sunlight and CO2 to sugars and oxygen during photosynthesis. The primary consumers invest this, the secdonaey consumers ingest the primary consumers and so on. - EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERTYTHING:
All living things interact with each other (both living and non-living) in their environment. The climate affects the living things in an area. The phytoplankton influences the zooplankton population and the zooplankton population determines the fish population who eats the zoooplankton and so on. - ALL ECOSYSTEMS ARE DYNAMIC
An ecosystem is dynamic; in a consent state of change. In death or degradation there is no waste.
Matter is continually recycled among biotic and abiotic components.
Rocks are worn down into sediment, or changed, moved or leached by the forces of the environment.
Sediments are then used as a substrate and source of nutrients by marine plants for their growth and survival.
