Energy Pyramids and Carbon Cycle April 23, 2013

Ecological Pyramids can be used to show: the total amount of living material in an ecosystem. an organism’s position in the sequence of energy transfers (it’s place in the food chain). the relative amounts of energy or matter contained within each trophic level in a food chain or a food web.

An Energy Pyramid Producer Primary Consumer Secondary Consumer Tertiary Consumer

Consumers get the energy they to survive from their food. Because each organism at each trophic level uses much of this energy to live: About 90% of energy taken in is used or lost as heat. Therefore only about 10% of the energy is available to the organism at the next trophic level. This idea of energy transfer & loss is called the Ten-Percent Law.

A total of 15,000 Calories of energy exists at the producer level in a community. How much energy will be available for the organisms at each of the following levels? Primary Consumer? 1500 calories Secondary Consumer? 150 calories Tertiary Consumer? 15 calories

If the tertiary consumers in a given community have 500 calories of energy available to them, how much energy was available at the secondary consumer level? 5000 calories

Poison Accumulation Poisons accumulate as you move up trophic levels. A trophic level will typically have 10x the level below it. If a producer has 5 mg of mercury/kg, how much poison would the secondary consumer have? 500 mg/kg

Carbon Cycle - Process in which carbon is cycled through the biosphere. Carbon is the key ingredient of living tissue – essential for organic compounds… the building blocks of life: (Proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is an important component of the atmosphere Photosynthesis (autotrophs) – Removes CO2 from atmosphere, stores the carbon in the form of glucose. Cellular respiration (autotrophs & heterotrophs) – Eat organic compounds and release CO2 into the atmosphere

Humans effects on the carbon cycle. The burning of fossil fuels and vegetation releases CO2 into the atmosphere. Cutting down rainforests decreases the amount photosynthesis. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing which is likely causing global warming.

What can humans due to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?