Biology 2483A Chapter 21: Energy Flow and Food Webs
15 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Lecture 20 energy flow and food webs. Introduction (cid:120) the ecological roles of organisms are determined by their trophic interactions what they eat and what eats them: this determines the organisms influence on movement of energy and nutrients through an ecosystem, trophic dynamics control energy/nutrient flow. Trophic levels describe the feeding positions of groups of organisms in ecosystems. Most energy going through detritivores (feeding on dead material produced by carnivores). Get eaten by carnivores as well. (cid:120) all organisms are either consumed by other organisms or enter the pool of dead organic matter (detritus). In terrestrial ecosystems, only a small portion of the biomass is consumed, and most of the energy flow passes through the detritus. Everything that"s not here = what"s getting eaten. Everything here = everything not getting eaten. Up to 60% of the studied looked at, almost all of the npp ended up as detritus.
