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10: Ecosystems

Last updated

Aug 15, 2023
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- 9.5: Succession
- 10.1: Introduction to Ecosystem Ecology

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Reef building corals on a coral reef — Figure $\PageIndex{1}$ : A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Coral reefs are one of the most productive, biodiverse, and economically valuable ecosystem on Earth. They are home to 25% of all marine species including many species of commercially important fish and shellfish. Healthy coral reefs support commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as jobs and businesses through tourism and recreation. Local economies receive billions of dollars from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based near reef ecosystems. Coral reef structures also buffer shorelines against 97 percent of the energy from waves, storms, and floods, helping to prevent loss of life, property damage, and erosion. Despite their great economic and recreational value, coral reefs are severely threatened by pollution, disease, and habitat destruction. (CC BY-SA 3.0; Toby Hudson via Wikipedia)

Chapter Summary

chapter summary here

10.1: Introduction to Ecosystem Ecology
An ecosystem is a community of living organisms and their interactions with their abiotic (non-living) environment. Ecosystem ecology focuses on the transfer of energy and matter among living and non-living components within and between ecosystems. Ecosystems can be classified based on their general environment: freshwater, ocean water, and terrestrial. Ecologists study ecosystems using controlled experiments (in either natural or manipulated environments) and by creating ecosystem models that d
10.2: Energy Flow through Ecosystems
All living things require energy in one form or another as it is required by most life-sustaining metabolic pathways. Productivity within an ecosystem can be defined as the percentage of energy entering the ecosystem incorporated into biomass in a particular trophic level. The productivity of the primary producers is especially important in any ecosystem because these organisms bring energy to other living organisms. The structure of ecosystems can be visualized with ecological pyramids which il
10.3: Biogeochemical Cycles
The matter that makes up living organisms is conserved and recycled. The six most common elements associated with organic molecules—carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—take a variety of chemical forms and may exist for long periods in the atmosphere, on land, in water, or beneath the Earth’s surface. Geologic processes, such as weathering, erosion, water drainage, and the subduction of the continental plates, all play a role in this recycling of materials.
10.4: Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Functioning healthy ecosystems offer such things as natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, and human mental and physical well-being. Collectively, these benefits are becoming known as ecosystem services, and are often integral to the provision of food, the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and the resilience and p
10.5: Resistance, Resilience, and Stability
An ecosystem is said to possess ecological stability (or equilibrium) if it is capable of returning to its equilibrium state after a perturbation (a capacity known as resilience) or does not experience unexpected large changes in its characteristics across time.

Chapter Summary

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