Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Net ecosystem production (NEP) in ecology, limnology, and oceanography, is the difference between gross primary production (GPP) and net ecosystem respiration. [1] Net ecosystem production represents all the carbon produced by plants in water through photosynthesis that does not get respired by animals , other heterotrophs , or the plants ...
Ecosystem classifications are specific kinds of ecological classifications that consider all four elements of the definition of ecosystems: a biotic component, an abiotic complex, the interactions between and within them, and the physical space they occupy. Biotic factors of the ecosystem are living things; such as plants, animals, and bacteria ...
For example, among aquatic ecosystems, higher rates of production are usually found in large rivers and shallow lakes than in deep lakes and clear headwater streams. [25] Among terrestrial ecosystems, marshes, swamps, and tropical rainforests have the highest primary production rates, whereas tundra and alpine ecosystems have the lowest. [25]
Without proper balance, an ecosystem can collapse and cause the decline of all affected species. This will lead to a severely disrupted ecosystem and a nonfunctional consumer web. In addition, there will be a change in climate, which can further worsen the ecosystem and affect the air quality and water. [5]
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 ...
As with the others, this graph shows producers at the bottom and higher trophic levels on top. When an ecosystem is healthy, this graph produces a standard ecological pyramid. This is because, in order for the ecosystem to sustain itself, there must be more energy at lower trophic levels than there is at higher trophic levels.
Ecosystem services are ecologically mediated functional processes essential to sustaining healthy human societies. [6] Water provision and filtration, production of biomass in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries, and removal of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere are examples of ecosystem services essential to public health and economic opportunity.
Also Gause's law. A biological rule which states that two species cannot coexist in the same environment if they are competing for exactly the same resource, often memorably summarized as "complete competitors cannot coexist". coniferous forest One of the primary terrestrial biomes, culminating in the taiga. conservation biology The study of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting and ...