- Published: January 10, 2022
- Updated: January 10, 2022
- University / College: University of Alberta
- Language: English
- Downloads: 24
Food Web DiagramAn ecosystem can be defined as a more or less self-contained function unit in ecology consisting of all abiotic and biotic interactions in a specific area.
Flow of energy within an ecosystem is a one-way process; Photosynthesis utilizes light (solar) energy to yield chemical energy that is passed on to organisms at significantly reduced amounts at each level of nutrition. This ‘ inefficiency’ in energy transfer is the principal constrain in the food chain distance. Food chains be able to recognize as the order of organisms through which energy flows. In addition, food chains and food webs of numerous complexity describe the complicated feeding relationships between the members of a community in an ecosystem and a variety of them exists. I chose to write about is the desert biome, and this is what you can find in my ecosystem: Coyote (D) Hawk (D) Snake (D) Mouse (C) Scorpion (C) Lizard (C) Insects (C) Quail (C) Cactus (P) Grass (P). While discussing ecosystem, it is important to know that you have producers, consumers, and decomposers.
Producers are the plants and the tress in the ecosystem that provide the energy to the ecosystem. As for the desert the producers are cactus and grass. The consumers of the ecosystem are in three different kinds, they are herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Herbivores are the consumers that eat plants which in the ecosystem that I chose are jackrabbits, mice, quail, and insects.
The carnivores eat meat. The carnivores in my ecosystem are scorpions, snakes, and lizards. Omnivores eat both plants and animals which I do not have any of those in my food web. Then you have decomposers, which feed off of dead organisms. In my ecosystem that I chose, that would be hawks and coyotes.
This is what is called the cycle of life within the desert ecosystem. When you talk about the problems that humans cause on any ecosystem, it would be the growth in the population. Every time we expand where we as humans live, we move into their territory which changes the food web in a very drastic way.
When we talk about the abiotic factor within my ecosystem you are talking about rocks, dirt, sun, wind, rain, and extreme temperatures. In my ecosystem you have cactus and grass which gets ate by mice, jackrabbits, insects, and quail, which get eaten by scorpions, lizards, and snakes, which are eaten by hawks and coyotes. Cactus are a plant that has learned to survive in the extreme weather by being able to hold on to the water within itself to survive the extreme heat and dryness during the summer.