Energy And Matter Flow Through Ecosystems

The term ecosystem refers to a group of organisms and their environment.

Energy and matter flow through ecosystems.

Energy enters all ecosystems as sunlight and is gradually lost as heat back into the environment. Energy flow through an ecosystem energy from the sun is captured by organisms that carry on photosynthesis. Instead energy flow through an ecosystem is a one way street generally from light to heat. Ecosystems are a constant flow of matter and energy from one place to another.

Energy usually enters ecosystems as sunlight and is captured in chemical form by photosynthesizers like plants and algae. These are the producers at the first trophic level. Ecosystems take up matter and energy as plants and animals grow reproduce and maintain life. When organisms use organic matter for cellular respiration all the matter goes back into carbon dioxide water and minerals while all the energy leaves the ecosystem as heat which is ultimately radiated out into space.

That matter and energy can be recycled within the ecosystem or exported out of the ecosystem. There are other sources of energy you could think about even moonlight but that essentially comes from the sun. And while all matter is conserved in an ecosystem energy flows through an ecosystem meaning it is not conserved. Matter moves through an ecosystem through the recycling of energy and nutrients between different trophic levels.

Ecosystems balance the various processes and activities within them. It is amusing to find that we receive less than 50 per cent of the sun s effective radiation on earth. As energy flows from one trophic level to the next approximately 90 of it is lost. In this lesson we will discuss some of the important energy and matter cycles that take place within and between.

So matter cycles energy flows through ecosystems. However before energy flows out of the ecosystem as heat it flows between organisms in a process called energy flow. Similarly plants require nutrients like nitrogen to grow. The first trophic level consists of primary producers like plants that can manufacture their own food through photosynthesis.

And how does the ecosystem make use of that energy. The energy for most ecosystems originally comes from the sun. Energy unlike matter cannot be recycled in ecosystems. Energy flow is unidirectional or one way.