The Organization of Life

and Energy
Georgia Standards of Excellence
• EV1: Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to
investigate the flow of energy and cycling of matter within
an ecosystem.
• EV1a: Develop and use a model to compare and analyze the
levels of biological organization including organisms,
populations, communities, ecosystem and the biosphere.
• Develop and use a model based on the Laws of
Thermodynamics should be used to predict energy transfers
throughout an ecosystem (food chains, food webs, and
trophic levels.
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Ecology Environmental Science

Definition – the study of the interactions Definition – The study of the
between organisms and the living and impact of humans on the
nonliving components of their
environment.
environment.
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What is environmental science?
• A major goal of environmental science is to
understand and solve environmental problems.
• Environmental Scientists study two main types of
interactions between humans and the environment:
• 1. One area of study focuses on how we use natural resources, such as
water and plants.
• 2. The second area of study focuses on how our actions alter our
environment.
Key Goal of Environmental Science
• Achieving sustainability.
• Sustainability is the condition in which
human needs are met in such a way that a
human population can survive indefinitely.
• A sustainable world is a changing world:
technology advances and human civilizations
continue to be productive.
An Ecosystem
• Ecosystem – all of the organisms living in an area together
with their physical environment.
• Examples of ecosystems:
• Oak forest
• Coral reef
• Vacant lot

• Ecosystems do not have clear boundaries. Things move from

one ecosystem to another. Soil moves in a lake, birds
migrate.
Components of an Ecosystem

Biotic Factors Abiotic Factors

• Living things • Nonliving things
• All the plants and animals • Air, water, rocks, sand,
light, and temperature.
• Dead organisms are also
included in the living parts
because they were once
alive.
 Levels of
Organization -
Biosphere
• the broadest level, it is
the Earth and it’s
atmosphere that
supports life.
•All organisms are found
in the biosphere.
•It is about 10 miles up
and down to the
deepest part of the
ocean.

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Ecosystems

The living and

non-living parts
of the
environment.
 Communities
– all the
interacting
organisms living in
an area. Includes
all kinds of species.

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Population
– includes all the
members of a
species that live in
one place at one
time.
-the members of a
population can
breed with one
another.
Organism
– an individual living
thing
-the simplest level, focuses
on the adaptations that
allow organisms to
overcome the challenges
of the environment.
- A species is a group of
organisms that can mate
to produce fertile
offspring.
Habitat
-All organisms live in a
particular place
-The place the organism
lives is its habitat.
-Every habitat has
specific biotic and
abiotic factors that the
organisms need to
survive.
The Niche
• A species’ niche is its way of life, or the role the
species plays in its environment.
• It includes the range of conditions that the species
can tolerate, offspring, how it gets food.
• The fundamental niche is the range of conditions
that a species can potentially tolerate and the range
of resources it can use.
• The realized niche is the range of resources it
actually uses.
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 Laws of Thermodynamics
• First Law: Energy is Not created or
destroyed
• Can change form
• Matter and Energy can be converted

• Second Law: Entrophy increases

• Entrophy is a lack of order or predictability; gradual decline
into disorder.
• Entrophy increases when the amount of usable energy decreases.
• It is also described as the amount of chaos present.
• In regards to the energy pyramid:
• As each level consumes organisms from the lower
levels the creatures become more organized and the
entrophy goes down.
• Each creature expels waste and heat, which are less
useful.
• Therefore, as you go up the pyramid the entrophy
of the organism goes down, but the total entrophy
of the world goes up, thus fulfilling the 2nd law of
thermodynamics.
 Energy Transfer
• Each time an organism eats
another organism, a transfer of
energy occurs.
• We can trace the transfer of
energy as it travels through an
ecosystem by studying food
chains, food webs, and trophic
levels.
• They tell us HOW energy is
transferred as well as how
MUCH energy is transferred.
Energy Pyramid
• The way we visualize the loss
of energy from one trophic
level to the next is to draw an
energy pyramid.
• Each layer represents a trophic
level.
• An ecological pyramid is a graphical representation
designed to show the number of organisms, energy
relationships, and biomass of an ecosystem.
• Producer organisms (usually green plants) form the basis
of the pyramid, with succeeding levels above representing
the different trophic levels.
• Succeeding levels in the pyramid represent the
dependence of the organisms at a given level on the
organisms at a given on the organisms at lower level.
• The pyramid of energy represents the total amount
of energy consumed by each trophic level.
• An energy pyramid is always upright as the total
amount of energy available for utilization in the
layers above is less than the energy available in the
lower levels.
• This happens because during energy transfer from
lower to higher levels, some energy is always lost.
Trophic Levels
• Trophic levels are the feeding position in a food chain such
as primary producers, herbivore, primary consumers, etc.
• Each time energy is transferred from one organism to
another, some of the energy is lost as heat and less energy
is available to the next trophic level.
• About 90% of the energy at each trophic level is used for
producing new cells, regulating body temperature, moving
and reproduction.
• Only 10% of the energy is available to the next organism
in the trophic levels.
• Producers are on the bottom level
of the energy pyramid.
• They are organisms that make
their own food through
photosynthesis or chemical sources.
• Producers are autotrophs,
organisms who make their own
food.
• Examples are Bacteria, Algae, and
all plants.
• Producers get their energy
directly by the sun by absorbing it
through their leaves or cells. Producers
• Producers start with 100% of the
energy. They pass up 10%.
 Primary Consumers
• Next level are Primary Consumers:
organisms that get energy by
eating producers.
• Also called heterotrophs (have to
eat other things to get energy).
• Also called Herbivores – Plant
eaters
• Examples are plant eaters: Mice,
starfish, elephants, turtles, and
ants.
• They pass up 10% of their energy
to the next level.
 Secondary Consumers
• This level contains omnivores –
organisms that eat both plants
and animals.
• These animals eat the plant
eaters.
• Examples could be snakes,
humans, bears, some insects and
pigs.
 Tertiary Consumers are on the top level
• Carnivores are meat
eaters. They are usually
on the Tertiary level.
• They eat the Secondary
consumers.
• Examples are lions,
hawks, owls, sharks,
alligators.
 Decomposers
• They get their food from breaking
down dead organisms.
• The decomposers allow the
nutrients in the rotting material
to return to the soil, water and
air.
• Some animals like worms and
snails are also considered
decomposers.
 Biomass
• Biomass is another way we can look at the amount of
organisms in an ecosystem.
• Biomass is the number of organisms multiplied by the
dry weight of the organic matter within one organism.
• The biomass of producers is expected to be greater than
the biomass of herbivores, and that of herbivores is
expected to be greater than that of carnivores.
• So, if the
• herbivore population consumes 1000 kg of plant
material,
• only about 100 kg of converted to herbivore tissue,
• 10kg to first level carnivores (or omnivores)
• and 1kg to second level carnivores.

• The 10% rule explains why few

carnivores can be supported in a food
web.
Food Chains
• A food chain is a sequence in which energy is transferred from one
organism to the next as each organism eats another organism.
• The feeding of one organism upon another in a sequence of
food transfers is known as a food chain.
• A food chain starts with the primary producers.
• A food chain starts with a primary energy source, usually
the sun.
• Each food chain ends with a top predator and animal with
no natural enemies (like an alligator, hawk, or polar bear).
• The arrows in a food chain show the flow of energy, from
the sun to the top predator.
• As the energy flows from organism to organism, energy is
lost at each step.
Significance of Food Chains
• Food chain studies help:
• Understanding the feeding relationships and the
interaction between organisms in any ecosystem.
• Comprehend the energy flow mechanisms and matter
circulation in ecosystems
• Understand the movement of toxic substances and the
problem of “Biological magnification” in the ecosystem.
• Bio magnification is the concentration of toxins in an
organism as a result of its ingesting other plants or
animals in which the toxins are more widely disbursed.
• Analyze the biological diversity in an ecosystem.
 Food Webs
• A food web shows many feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
• A network of many food chains is called a food web.
• When an organism dies, it is eventually eaten by
detritivores (like vultures, worms and crabs) and broken
down by decomposers (mostly bacteria and fungi), and
the exchange of energy continues.
• In nature, detritus food chains are indispensable as the
dead organic matter of a grazing food chain is acted upon
by the detritivores to recycle the inorganic elements into
the ecosystem