```Remainder of Lecture Course

- Last Literacy Assignment

- Major lecture topics: Ecosystem Ecology
o Community Structure (17)
o Ecosystem productivity (18)
o Nutrient Cycles (19)
o Succession (20)
- 2 more quizzes: Friday Nov. 16 and Friday Dec. 7
- Final is on Tuesday, Dec. 11 at 8 am
Chapter 17: Community Structure
- First topic: Food Webs  energy flowing from one organism to another as they eat each
other
- Energy: Basics
o What is energy?
 Energy: ability to do work
 Muscle contraction
 Nerve impulses
 Active transport – cell function
o What are the forms of energy?
 Heat
 Chemical
 Nuclear
 Mechanical
 Electrical
 Solar
o What are the laws of thermodynamics?
 Energy is transformed (never created nor destroyed)
o Energy conversion in organisms?
o How do organisms “fix” energy?
 Autotrophs  self feeding (take energy from another source and make it into their
own food)
 Photosynthetic
o CO2 + H2O (sunlight) Food (sugar) + O2 ( + H2O)
o Source of Carbon? Carbon in the air: CO2
o Source of Energy? Sun
 Chemosynthetic (less common)
 For each:
o Source of Carbon?
 Inorganic molecules (CO2 or methane)
o Source of Energy?
 Inorganic molecules (Hydrogen or H2S or methane)
 CO2 + O2 + H2S  CH2O + S + H2O
 Heterotrophs  any organism that eats another organism to gain energy
 Source of Energy and Carbon?
o Organic molecules
  Equation?
o Food (sugar) + O2 (Heat and ATP lost) CO2 + Water
 Trophic diversity across kingdoms?

Heterotrophic Photosynthetic Chemosynthetic

Bacteria X (many) X (many) X (many)
Protists X (many) X (some) NO
Plants X (few) X (most) NO
Fungi X (all) NO NO
Animals X (all) NO NO

Alan Weisman (The World without Us)

- Food Webs
o Food web early research
 Charles Elton…
 Antarctic Food Webs
o 1950s: analytical (functional) approach (cause and effect relationships)
 How does food web structure influence population dynamics?
 Are complex communities more stable?...
o Keystone species
 Robert Paine (1950-60s)
 Keystone species: ones that exert “substantial influence”
 His focus: how they influence community structure
 His hypothesis: Keystone predators increase species diversity
 How? Can you guess?
o High number of predators = low potential for competitive
exclusion of prey…
 Predator pick off prey so the prey never meet their full
population sizes  less competition so more species kept
in habitat
 Paine’s study: intertidal zone
o Compared two sites:
 Site One: Washington Coast
 Piaster (star fish or sea stars): top predators
 Thais (mollusk): mid-level predator
 Food web base: 9 other species
 Site Two: Gulf of CA
 Six mid-level predators
 Top predator: Heliaster (starfish)
 Total of 45 species below
 Conclusion: more predators = more diversity
o Experimentation
 What if top predator removed?
 Washington site: removed Piaster
 What happened? ...
 o Removing a starfish acting as a top predator
in intertidal food webs reduced the number
of species both in Mukkaw Bay,
Washington, and New Zealand
 Was it due to competitive exclusion?
 What was being competed for?
o Space
 Can consumers exert control on food webs?
 J. Lubchenko (snails being able to be a keystone species)
o Snails (Littorina) and algae
o Observations
o In the lab
o Snails:
 Preferred Enteromorpha
 Small, tender
 Disliked Chondrus
 Tough
o In the field
 Pools with few snails = Enteromorpha increase
 Pools with many snails = Chondrus increase
o Why?
 Hypothesis: snails regulate algae populations
 Enteromorpha better competitor than Chondrus
o Test of hypothesis…
 3 pools:
 Control
 Snails added
 Snails removed
 Additional study: Lubchenko
o Effect of snail on algae diversity
o Observation: intertidal pools
 See Fig 17.9
 Lots of snails, lots diversity, eating entomorphia and
other algae…less species diversity
 Related environmental issue
o Exotic (=introduced, =Invasive) species
 Often predators
 Can reshape food webs
o Can you think of any examples?
 Trout
 Zebra mussels
 Fire Ants
 Snakehead fish in Maryland
 Nile Perch (effects Lake Victoria Basin / lose of
biodiversity)
  Piscivorous (fish eating)
Next topic: Primary Production
Chapter 18
- Primary production
o Fixation of energy by autotrophs
o Gross Primary Production
 Total energy fixed by all autotrophs
o Net Primary Production
 Amount of energy left after autotrophs meet their needs
 Energy for next trophic level
 Net Primary Production = Gross Primary Production – cellular respiration by
primary producers…
o How to measure Primary production? Your Ideas?
 Uptake of Carbon by producers
 Amount of biomass in producers
 Amount of oxygen released from producers
o Trophic levels
 Energy pyrmid:
 Bottom: Primary producer  Primary consumer  Secondary
consumer Top consumer
o What affects primary production?
 Terrestrial (Light and water)
 Which ecosystems have the highest Primary Production?
o Warm, wet (tropical rainforest)
o Why?
 Amount of leaf area
 Duration of growing season
o Another way to assess Primary Production
 Correlation between primary production and AET
 Annual actual evapotranspirtation
 AET depends on: moisture and temperature
o Variation in terrestrial Primary Production
 Soil fertility also matters
 “Law of the Minimum”
o Growth is controlled by the scarcest nutrient
 Which nutrients?
o Nitrogen and Phosphorus
 Think of agriculture
 Exp approach: add fertilizers…
o Increased pp in wet and dry meadows
o Aquatic Primary Production
 Precipitation and temperature not as important
 Limiting factor: nutrients
 In freshwater?
 o Phosphorus
 In marine?
o Nitrogen
 Environmental consequence: eutrophication
o Marine habitats
 Ryther and Dunstan
 NY Harbor – 1970s
 Sampling: Nitrogen and overall PP decreased sharply to continental shelf
 Experiment?
 Added nitrogen and phosphorus to plankton samples along this gradient
 Nitrogen was the limiting nutrient
o PP in oceans
 Decreases from coast out to open ocean
o What affects primary production?
 Consumer effects on Primary Production
 Organisms can affect Primary Production, too
 Called the “trophic cascades” hypothesis
 Experiment
 Carpenter and Kitchell
 1980-90s
 Lakes
 Food web as follows:
o Bottom of Food web: phytoplankton (algae)  zooplankton
(daphnia like creatures)  Planktivorous fish (minnows) 
Piscivorous fish (l. bass)
o Take one organism out and you effect the primary production of
the whole food web
 3 kinds of lakes
o 1) added minnows and removed bass
o 2) added bass and removed minnows
o 3) Control
 Then monitored the primary production
o 1) minnow population would take off and therefore the
zooplankton would be negatively effects and the phytoplankton
would be positively effected
o 2) the zooplankton would increase from the lack of predation from
the minnow and then the phytoplankton would be negatively
effected
o Energy Flow and Trophic Levels
 Quantification: Lindeman, 1940s
 “Trophic dynamics”
 Energy transfer from one part of an ecosystem to another
 Study: Minnesota Lake
o X-axis  rate of production and y-axis  trophic level
 o How efficient is the Energy flow?
 Generalization about energy flow:
 Reduced by ~90% each level
 Low amount of energy available for 2nd and 3rd level consumers
o Generally maximum of 5 trophic levels
o POINT: transfer of energy limits # of trophic levels possible
o There isn’t enough energy to sustain a large amount of predators
o Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire
 Experimental Forest – USFS
 Energy flow:
 Sun’s energy
o 15% reflected
o 41% converted to heat
o 42% evapotranspiration (energy transferred from the roots the tips
of the plant)
o Left only ~ 2.2 % as gross primary production
o Of that 2.2%...
 1.2 % = plant respiration
 ONLY 1% net primary production
 Consumers: use 96% of that for respiration
 Not much for 3rd trophic level!
o Ecological pyramids
 Pyramid of energy
 Pyramid of numbers
 Number of organisms at each level
 Shape? Same as pyramid of energy
 Pyramid of biomass
 Total mass (weight) of organisms at each level
 Shape? The same in terrestrial ecosystems and then inverted in aquatic
 Sometimes inverted?
o Open aquatic ecosystems (phytoplankton)
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Two more chapters: 19 and 20
19: Nutrient cycling
20: Succession and stability
On Wed and Fri of last week: paper presentations
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GET NOTES FROM MONDAY NOVEMBER 26TH 2007

- Nutrient cycling
o Decomposition
 Envirnomental breakdown of organic matter
 Detritis: dead body decaying (organic matter)
o Mineralization
 Conversion of organic to inorganic material
o Decompostion
 What factors affect it?
 Moisture
 Chemical composition
 Soil nutrients
 Temperature
 Organisms
 Spain Study (19.5)
 Which site received more rainfall?
o More rainfall equals a higher decomposition rate
 Spain Study (19.6)
 Conclusion here?
o Soft  Higher the nitrogen in the leaf higher the decomposition
rate and Tough  Lower the nitrogen in the leaf the lower the rate
of decomposition
 Temp Decid Forest (19.7)
 Two sites: north carolina and new hampshire
 High amounts of lignin = low amounts of nitrogen
 Low amounts of lignin = high amounts of nitrogen
o Lignin: in cell wall of plants with cellulose
 Temperature or moisture play a role
 Lignin inhabibits the decomposition process
 Aquatic Ecosystems (19.11)
 Different species of tree
 Higher lignin content the lower the decomposition rate in freshwater
 Aquatic Ecosystems (19.12)
 Yellow poplar leaves decompose faster in streams with higher nitrate
content
 Aquatic Ecosystems (19.13)
 Phosphorus concentrate effecting decomposition rates
o Rate of leaf decomposition in creased rapidly as phosphorus
concentration increased
o Rate then leveled off at higher concentrations of phosphorus
o Effect of organisms on cycling
 What organisms feed on detritus?
 Fungi
 Insects (burying beetle, flies)
 Bacteria
 Birds (vulture)
 Earthworms
 Crayfish
 Animals
 o Mites, nematodes, insects (esp. maggots, beetles), earthworms,
sowbugs
 Streams: nutrient spiraling
 Nutrient cycling not spatially stationary because of water flow…
 Evidence that invertebrates reduce spiraling length
 Rapid recycling of nitrogen
o Increase Primary Production
 Loss of inverts = reduced Primary Production?...
o Harmful for a stream
 Terrestrial habitats
 Burrowing mammals: Nitrogen-rich soil surface
o Prairie dogs, gophers, ground hogs
o Increased plant diversity
 Increased grazing by herbivores
o Moose, buffalo
o Increased cycling of nitrogen…
o Trees and Nutrient Loss
 How does disturbance affect nutrient loss in an ecosystem?
 Clear cutting forest harms soil and there is a massive nutrient loss
 Likens and Bormann
 Hubbard Brook, NH
 Clear cutting experiment…
o Channel water and use it to experiment
 Deforestation and Nitrate Loss
o Around year 1966 there was a massive increase in nitrate
concentration in the stream water coming off the mountain (mg/L)
in a clear-cut basin
o Nitrate level did not change instantaneous
Chapter 20 – Succession
- Gradual change in community structure over time
o Primary: from bare substrate (rock)
o Secondary: not from bare substrate (not everything is wiped out)
o Pg 485 -496 (Case Studies)
- Pg 500 – 507 Ecological stability
o Def? The absence of change
 Ecosystem persistence in the face of disturbance
o Results from:
 Resistance: ‘maintenance’ ability
 Resilience: ‘rebound’ ability
o Problem: very few studies…
o Question: Which ecosystems are the most stable?
 Related to biodiversity of the area?
 Tilman: 1980s-90s research
 Stability of MN Grassland
 Changes in biomass and diversity…
 Conclusion: with increase in biodiversity
o Community/ecosystem was more stable
o Populations weren’t necessarily more stable
 High variability for population levels of any given species
 Competitive release for some species?
 Web Article on webCT