The principle of energy conservation or first law of thermodynamics teaches us that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transforms. In addition, the second law of thermodynamics shows us that energy passes from one organized system to another more disorganized. These two rules govern the energy flows of ecosystems. In ecological communities, energy is transferred from one organisms to others, and part is lost in heat or heat. To represent energy levels, different tools are used in ecology, including ecological pyramids. Next, in ecology, we will explain to you What are ecological pyramids and their types.
Energy in the ecosystem
As we have already mentioned, it is essential to know the Thermodynamics lawsbecause they help us understand how the energy inside the ecosystem. On the one hand, we have producers, they are usually photosynthetic organisms, which are capable of using a primary energy source such as sunlight. Producers thanks to sunlight perform photosynthesis where they transform that light energy into chemical energy and biomass. This biomass and energy is available for the rest of consumers. Consumers can be classified as primary, feed directly from the producers, so here the herbivores, the secondary or predators would be included, feed on primary consumers and there could be a third class, tertiary consumers, which normally correspond to the decomponers and are those that feed on the detritus or dead organisms.
The terms of producers and consumers are related to the trophic level of The food chain in an ecosystemthat is, the position occupied by organisms depending on their energy source and eating habits. On the other hand, in ecology, there is talk of Energy flow to refer to the set of energy transformations and movements by trophic levels. Solar energy is transformed, in part, into chemical energy and, in part, it is transformed into heat.
What are ecological pyramids
The ecological pyramids They are a graphic representation that gives Information about the trophic levels of an ecosystem. Each level is represented by a rectangle with a width proportional to the value it represents and are normally staggered creating a pyramid form, but sometimes, the size of the steps can vary by creating other types of pyramids. They can be about the number of individuals, the amount of biomass or energy content of each of the trophic levels of an ecosystem.
Types of ecological pyramids
Finally, we comment which are the different types of ecological pyramids:
Ecological Numbers Pyramids
They represent the number of producers, herbivores or primary consumers, carnivores or secondary consumers and decomponers or tertiary consumers in the ecosystem. The typical pyramids are those where producers are located at the base and have the greatest number of individuals, followed by herbivores to a lesser number and finally carnivores and decomposers, even in lesser number. These can be more or less accused, that is, for the same number of producers, the number of herbivores and carnivores may be greater or lesser, as long as the explained above is fulfilled. There may also be ecological pyramids of inverted numbers, where the largest number of individuals is at the top of the pyramid and the minor at the base. This occurs in old populations where there are many older individuals and few young people or in parasitism where there are a few individuals and many who feed on them.
Ecological biomass pyramids
They represent the grams or kilograms of carbon that are for each surface or volume, that is, how many kilos of carbon are produced at each trophic level. The most common pyramid is that where producers produce more carbon, followed by primary, secondary and tertiary consumers. However, there may be an investment between primary consumers and producers as in marine ecosystems. The marine phytoplankton grows and reproduces rapidly, but despite this, it is eaten even faster by primary consumers, and this is usually represented as an inverted pyramid.
Ecological energy pyramids
They represent the flow of energy in the ecosystem. Since energy is transmitted from producers to the rest of consumers, there is only one type of pyramid. The producers are located at the base of the pyramid, since they represent the photosynthetic organisms that take advantage of solar energy to transform the inorganic matter into organic and make it available to the rest of the organisms, then primary consumers will be located and finally the secondary and tertiary. For every 100 calories of solar energy that producers take advantage of, only 10 calories will become a usual biomass for primary consumers. The rest of that energy is used by producers in metabolism, in structures such as dead leaves or stems in the case of plants and other processes. As in the previous case only 10% of the energy of primary producers will be used by secondary consumers, this is what is known as the 10% rule.
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