Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
While an ecosystem often has no clear boundary, as a working model it is practical to consider the functional community where the bulk of matter and energy transfer occurs. [89] Nutrient cycling occurs in ecosystems that participate in the "larger biogeochemical cycles of the earth through a system of inputs and outputs." [89]: 425
As production consistently scales with body mass, MTE provides a framework to assess the relative importance of organismal size, temperature, functional traits, soil and climate on variation in rates of production within and across ecosystems. [38] Metabolic theory shows that variation in ecosystem production is characterized by a common ...
The flow of energy in an ecosystem is an open system; the Sun constantly gives the planet energy in the form of light while it is eventually used and lost in the form of heat throughout the trophic levels of a food web. Carbon is used to make carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, the major sources of food energy. These compounds are oxidized to ...
Different ecosystems have different levels of consumers, all end with one top consumer. Most energy is stored in organic matter of plants, and as the consumers eat these plants they take up this energy. This energy in the herbivores and omnivores is then consumed by carnivores. There is also a large amount of energy that is in primary ...
Flowing of energy and cycling of matter at the ecosystem level are often examined in ecosystem ecology, but, as a whole, this science is defined more by subject matter than by scale. Ecosystem ecology approaches organisms and abiotic pools of energy and nutrients as an integrated system which distinguishes it from associated sciences such as ...
The energy remaining after respiration is considered the net primary production. In general, gross production refers to the energy contained within an organism before respiration and net production the energy after respiration. The terms can be used to describe energy transfer in both autotrophs and heterotrophs.
Bioenergetics is a field in biochemistry and cell biology that concerns energy flow through living systems. [1] This is an active area of biological research that includes the study of the transformation of energy in living organisms and the study of thousands of different cellular processes such as cellular respiration and the many other metabolic and enzymatic processes that lead to ...
Biological thermodynamics (Thermodynamics of biological systems) is a science that explains the nature and general laws of thermodynamic processes occurring in living organisms as nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that convert the energy of the Sun and food into other types of energy. The nonequilibrium thermodynamic state of living ...