Manipulating energy transfer

2.3.3

Primary Productivity
Less than 1% of the sunlight energy reaching Earth is used for photosynthesis. The rest is reflected by clouds and the Earth's surface. It is used to heat the Earth's atmosphere or to evaporate water, or is of the wrong wavelength and is not captured by chlorophyll. The energy captured by leaves for photosynthesis is called Primary Productivity. Some of this will be used by the plant and lost as Respiratory heat. The difference between primary productivity and and respiratory heat is the Net primary productivity (NPP). NPP is the rate of production of new biomass available to consumption by heterotrophs.

Improving Primary Productivity

By manipulating environmental factors, humans can increase NPP making energy conversion more efficient, reducing energy loss and increasing crop yields. Light intensity can limit the rate of photosynthesis, and hence NPP. Lack of water is important in many countries. Aswell as irrigting crops, drought - resistant strains have been bred. Temperature can limit the speed of chemical reactions in a plant. Greenhouses can provide a warmer temperature for growing plants and therefore increase NPP. Lack of available nutrients can slow the rate of photosynthesis and growth. Crop rotation can help. Pests, such as insects, caterpillars or nematodes, eat crop plants. They remove biomass and stored energy from the food chain, and lower the yeild.

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Fungal diseases of crop plants can reduce NPP. Fungi cause root rot, damage xylem vessels, damage foliage through wilt, blight or spotting, damage phloem tubes, or damage flowers and fruit. Competition from weeds for light, water and nutrients can reduce a crop's NPP. Farmers use herbicides to kill weeds.

Improving Secondary Productivity

Transfer of energy from producers to consumers is inefficient, as is transfer of energy from primary consumers to secondary consumers. However it is still possible for humans to manipulate energy transfer from producer to consumer. A young animal invests a large proportion of its energy into growth than an adult does. Harvesting animals just before adulthood minimises loss of energy from the food chain. Some farm animals have been treated with steroids to make them grow even more quickly, increasing the proportion of energy allocated to growth. Selective breeding has been used to produce breeds with faster growth rates, increased egg production and increased milk production. Animals may be treated with antibiotics to avoid unnecessary loss of energy to pathogens and parasites.

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Mammals and birds waste a lot of energy walking around to find food, and keeping their body temperature stable. Because energy transfer from producers to consumers can be inefficient it has been suggested that grain can be grown to feed humans instead of the cattle and sheep. But there are certain areas of land that are largely infertile and cannot be used to grow grains, but humans can eat the lamb produced.

Questions
Suggest which animals would be most efficient to farm; endotherms or ectotherms Ectotherms would be most efficient, as they would not use energy to maintain body temperature as endotherms need to. Hence, more energy would be allocated to growth, and contribute to eventual yield. Rainforests are an important source of biodiversity. Some rain forests are being cleared to grow crops for animal feed. Because of this some people have chosen to adopt a vegetarian diet. Explain their reasoning for this in terms of energy loss from the food chain? Land that is used for meat could be used for arable crop production, this involves shorter food chains, less energy is wasted rather than in a longer food chain producing farm animals. If fewer people ate meat, more land would be used for arable crop production, and less rainforest would need to be felled.