Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Energy flow is the flow of energy through living things within an ecosystem. [1] All living organisms can be organized into producers and consumers, and those producers and consumers can further be organized into a food chain. [2][3] Each of the levels within the food chain is a trophic level. [1] In order to more efficiently show the quantity ...
The mean chain length of an entire web is the arithmetic average of the lengths of all chains in a food web. [ 43 ] [ 15 ] In a simple predator-prey example, a deer is one step removed from the plants it eats (chain length = 1) and a wolf that eats the deer is two steps removed from the plants (chain length = 2).
Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular dinitrogen (N. 2) is converted into ammonia (NH. 3). [1] It occurs both biologically and abiologically in chemical industries. Biological nitrogen fixation or diazotrophy is catalyzed by enzymes called nitrogenases. [2]
A nutrient cycle (or ecological recycling) is the movement and exchange of inorganic and organic matter back into the production of matter. Energy flow is a unidirectional and noncyclic pathway, whereas the movement of mineral nutrients is cyclic. Mineral cycles include the carbon cycle, sulfur cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle, phosphorus ...
Nitrogen fixed by crusts has been shown to leak into surrounding substrate and can be taken up by plants, bacteria, and fungi. Nitrogen fixation has been recorded at rates of 0.7–100 kg/ha per year, from hot deserts in Australia to cold deserts. [9] Estimates of total biological nitrogen fixation are ~ 49 Tg/year (27–99 Tg/year). [8]
e. The biological pump (or ocean carbon biological pump or marine biological carbon pump) is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the ocean interior and seafloor sediments. [1] In other words, it is a biologically mediated process which results in the sequestering of carbon in the deep ...
The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmospheric, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can be carried out through both biological and physical processes. Important processes in the nitrogen cycle include fixation ...
Food chain in a Swedish lake. Osprey feed on northern pike, which in turn feed on perch which eat bleak which eat crustaceans.. A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web, often starting with an autotroph (such as grass or algae), also called a producer, and typically ending at an apex predator (such as grizzly bears or killer whales), detritivore (such as earthworms and woodlice ...