UPSC Biology Ecology and Ecosystem Biodiversity Ecology

Ecology

Category : UPSC

Ecology

Ramdeo Misra is revered as the Father of Ecology in India. Due to his efforts, the Government of India established the National Committee for Environmental Planning and Coordination (1972) which, in later years, paved the way for the establishment of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (1984).

1. Biotic and Abiotic Factors

The key elements that lead to so much variation in the physical and chemical conditions of different habitats are temperature, water, light and soil. Temperature is the most ecologically relevant environmental factor. The average temperature on land varies seasonally.
We can readily appreciate the significance of temperature to living organisms when we realise that it affects the kinetics of enzymes and through it the basal metabolism, activity and other physiological functions of the organism.
A few organisms can tolerate and thrive in a wide range of temperatures.
Next to temperature, water is the most important factor influencing the life of organisms. In fact, life on earth originated in water and is unsustainable without water.
Plants produce food through photosynthesis, a process which is only possible when sunlight is available as a source of energy, we can quickly understand the importance of light for living organisms, particularly autotrophs.
Many species of small plants (herbs and shrubs) growing in forests are adapted to photosynthesise optimally under very low light conditions because they are constantly overshadowed by tall, canopied trees.
Many plants are also dependent on sunlight to meet their photoperiodic requirement for flowering.
For many animals too, light is important in that they use the diurnal and seasonal variations in light intensity and duration (photoperiod) as cues for timing their foraging, reproductive and migratory activities.
The availability of light on land is closely linked with that of temperature since the sun is the source for both. But, deep (\[>\]500 m) in the oceans, the environment is perpetually dark and its inhabitants are not aware of the existence of a celestial source of energ) called Sun. What, then is their source of energy?
The spectral quality of solar radiation is also important for life. The UV component of the spectrum is harmful to many organisms while not all the colour components of the visible spectrum are available for marine plants living at different depths of the ocean.

2. Responses to Abiotic Factors

Evolutionary biologists believe that the 'success' of mammals is largely due to their ability to maintain a constant body temperature and thrive whether they live in Antarctica or in the Sahara desert.
The mechanisms used by most mammals to regulate their body temperature are similar to the ones that we humans use. We maintain a constant body temperature of \[37{}^\circ C\],
In summer, when outside temperature is more than our body temperature, we swear profusely. The resulting evaporative cooling, similar to what happens with a desert cooler in operation, brings down the body temperature.
In winter when the temperature is much lower than \[37{}^\circ C\], we start to shiver, a kind of exercise which produces heat and raises the body temperature. Plants, on the other hand, do not have such mechanisms tp maintain internal temperatures.
An overwhelming majority (99 per cent) of animals and nearly all plants cannot maintain a constant internal environment. Their body temperature changes with the ambient temperature. In aquatic animals, the osmotic concentration of the body fluids change with that of the ambient water osmotic concentration. These animals and plants are simply conformers.
Thermoregulation is energetically expensive for many organisms. This is particularly true for small animals like shrews and humming birds. Heat loss or heat gain is a function of surface area.
Since small animals have a larger surface area relative to their volume, they tend to lose body heat very fast when it is cold outside; then they have to expend much energy to generate body heat through metabolism.
This is the main reason why very small animals are rarely found in Polar Regions. During the course of evolution, the costs and benefits of maintaining a constant internal environment are taken into consideration. Some species have evolved the ability to regulate, but only over a limited range of environmental conditions, beyond which they simply conform» If the stressful external conditions are localized or remain only for a short duration, the organism has two other alternatives.
The organism can move away temporarily from the stressful habitat to a more hospitable area and return when stressful period is over. In human analogy, this strategy is like a person moving from Delhi to Shimla for the duration of summer.
Many animals, particularly birds, during winter undertake long-distance migrations to more hospitable areas. Every winter the famous Keolado National Park (Bharatpur) in Rajasthan host thousands of migratory birds coming from Siberia and other extremely cold northern regions.
In bacteria, fungi and lower plants, various kinds of thick walled spores are formed which help them to survive unfavourable conditions - these germinate on availability of suitable environment.
In higher plants, seeds and some other vegetative reproductive structures serve as means to tide over periods of stress besides helping in dispersal - they germinate to form new plants under favourable moisture and temperature conditions.
They do so by reducing their metabolic activity and going into a state of "dormancy9. In animals, the organism, if unable to migrate, might avoid the stress by escaping in time.
The familiar case of bears going into hibernation during winter is an example of escape in time. Some snails and fish go into aestivation to avoid summer-related problems-heat and dessication. Under unfavourable conditions many zooplankton species in lakes and ponds are known to enter diapause, a stage of suspended development.

3. Adaptations

Adaptation is any attribute of the organism (morphological, physiological, behavioural) that enables the organism to survive and reproduce in its habitat. Many adaptations have evolved over a long evolutionary time and are genetically fixed.
In the absence of an external source of water, the kangaroo rat in North American deserts is capable of meeting all its water requirements through its internal fat oxidation (in which water is a by product). It also has the ability to concentrate its urine so that minimal volume of water is used to remove excretory products.
Many desert plants have a thick cuticle on their leaf surfaces and have their stomata arranged in deep pits to minimise water loss through transpiration. They also have a special photosynthetic pathway (CAM) that enables their stomata to remain closed during day time. '
Some desert plants like Opuntia, have no leaves - they are reduced to spines - and the photosynthetic function is taken over by the flattened stems,
Mammals from colder climates generally have shorter ears and limbs to minimise heat loss. In the polar seas aquatic mammals like seals have a thick layer of fat (blubber) below their skin that acts as an insulator and reduces loss of body heat.
Some organisms possess adaptations that are physiological which allow them to respond quickly to a stressful situation. If we had ever been to any high altitude place (>3,500 m Rohtang Pass near Manali and Mansarovar, in China occupied Tibet) we must have experienced what is called altitude sickness. Its symptoms include nausea, fatigue and heart palpitations.
This is because in the low atmospheric pressure of high altitudes, the body does not get enough oxygen. But, gradually we get acclimatised and stop experiencing altitude sickness.
How did our body solve this problem? The body compensates low oxygen availability by increasing red blood cell production, decreasing the binding affinity of hemoglobin and by increasing breathing rate.
Many tribes live in the high altitude of Himalayas. Find out if they normally have a higher red blood cell count (or total hemoglobin) than people living in the plains.
Many fish thrive in Antarctic waters where the temperature is always below zero. How do they manage to keep their body fluids from freezing? A large variety of marine invertebrates and fish live at great depths in the ocean where the pressure could be \[>\] 100 times the normal atmospheric pressure that we experience. How do they live under such crushing pressures and do they have any special enzymes? Organisms living in such extreme environments show a fascinating array of biochemical adaptations.
Some organisms show behavioural responses to cope with variations in their environment. Desert lizards lack the physiological ability that mammals have to deal with the high temperatures of their habitat, but manage to keep their body temperature fairly constant by behavioural means.
They bask in the sun and absorb heat when their body temperature drops below the comfort zone, but move into shade when the ambient temperature starts increasing. Some species are capable of burrowing into the soil to hide and escape from the above-ground heat.

4. Life History Variation

Populations evolve to maximise their reproductive fitness, also called Darwinian fitness (high r value), in the habitat in which they live.
Under a particular set of selection pressures, organisms evolve towards the most efficient reproductive strategy. Some organisms breed only once in their lifetime (Pacific salmon fish, bamboo) while others breed many times during their lifetime (most birds and mammals).
Some produce a large number of small-sized offspring (Oysters, pelagic fishes) while others produce a small number of large-sized offspring (birds, mammals).

5. Population Interactions

Can you think of any natural habitat on earth that is inhabited just by a single species? There is no such habitat and such a situation is even inconceivable.
For any species, the minimal requirement is one more species on which it can feed. Even a plant species, which makes its own food, cannot survive alone; it needs soil microbes to break down the organic matter in soil and return the inorganic nutrients for absorption. And then, how will the plant manage pollination without an animal agent?
Both the species benefit in mutualism and both lose in competition in their interactions with each other. In both parasitism and predation only one species benefits (parasite and predator, respectively) and the interaction is detrimental to the other species (host and prey, respectively).
The interaction where one species is benefitted and the other is neither benefitted nor harmed is called commensalism. In amensalism on the other hand one species is harmed whereas the other is unaffected. Predation, parasitism and commensalism share a common characteristic - the interacting species live closely together.

Predation
What would happen to all the energy fixed by autotrophic organisms if the community has no animals to eat the plants? We can think of predation as nature's way of transferring to higher trophic levels the energy fixed by plants.
When we think of predator and prey, most probably it is the tiger and the deer that readily come to our mind, but a sparrow eating any seed is no less a predator. Although animals eating plants are categorised separately as herbivores, they are, in a broad ecological context, not very different from predators.
Besides acting as 'conduits’ for energy transfer across trophic levels, predators play other important roles. They keep prey populations under control. But for predators, prey species could achieve very high population densities and cause ecosystem instability.
When certain exotic species are introduced into a geographical area, they become invasive and start spreading fast because the invaded land does not have its natural predators. The prickly pear cactus introduced into Australia in the early 1920's jE caused havoc by spreading rapidly into millions of hectares ofrangeland. Finally, the invasive cactus was brought under control only after a cactus-feeding predator (a moth) from its natural habitat was introduced into the country,
Biological control methods adopted in agricultural pest control are based on the ability of the predator to regulate prey population.
Predators also help in maintaining species diversity in a community, by reducing the intensity of competition among competing prey species. In the rocky intertidal communities of the American Pacific Coast the starfish Pisaster is an important predator. In a field experiment, when all the starfish were removed from an enclosed ; intertidal area, more than 10 species of invertebrates became extinct within a year, because of interspecific competition,
If a predator is too efficient and overexploits its prey, then the prey might become extinct and following it, the predator will also become extinct for lack of food. This is the reason why predators in nature are 'prudent'.
Prey species have evolved various defenses to lessen the impact of predation. Some species of insects and frogs are cryptically-coloured (camouflaged) to avoid being detected easily by the predator.
Some are poisonous and therefore avoided by the predators. The Monarch butterfly is highly distasteful to its predator (bird) because of a special chemical present in its body. Interestingly, the butterfly acquires this chemical during its caterpillar stage by feeding on a poisonous weed.
For plants, herbivores are the predators. Nearly 25 per cent of all insects are known to be phytophagous (feeding on plant sap and other parts of plants). The problem is particularly severe for plants because, unlike animals, they cannot run away from their predators. Plants therefore have evolved an astonishing variety of morphological and chemical defences against herbivores.
Thorns (Acacia, Cactus) are the most common morphological means of defence, Many plants produce and store chemicals that make the herbivore sick when they are eaten, inhibit feeding or digestion, disrupt its reproduction or even kill it.
We seen the weed Calotropis growing in abandoned fields. The plant produces highly poisonous cardiac glycosides and that is why you never see any cattle or goats browsing on this plant.
A wide variety of chemical substances that we extract from plants on a commercial scale (nicotine, caffeine, quinine, strychnine, opium, etc.,) are produced by them actually as defences against grazers and browsers.

Competition
When Darwin spoke of the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest in nature he was convinced that interspecific competition is a potent force in organic evolution.
It is generally believed that competition occurs when closely related species compete for the same resources that are limiting, but this is not entirely true.
Firstly, totally unrelated species could also compete for the same resource. For instance, in some shallow South American lakes visiting flamingoes and resident fishes compete for their common food, the zooplankton in the lake.
Secondly, resources need not be limiting for competition to occur; in interference competition, the feeding efficiency of one species might be reduced due to the interfering and inhibitory presence of the other species, even if resources (food and space) are abundant. Therefore, competition is best defined as a process in which the fitness of one species (measured in terms of its 'r' the intrinsic rate of increase) is significantly lower in the presence of another species.
It is relatively easy to demonstrate in laboratory experiments, as Gause and other experimental ecologists did, when resources are limited the competitively superior species will eventually eliminate the other species, but evidence for such competitive exclusion occurring in nature is not always conclusive. Strong and persuasive circumstantial evidence does exist however in some cases.
The Abingdon tortoise in Galapagos Islands became extinct within a decade after goats were introduced on the island, apparently due to the greater browsing efficiency of the goats.
Another evidence for the occurrence of competition in nature comes from what is called 'competitive release9. A species whose distribution is restricted to a small geographical area because of the presence of a competitively superior species, is found to expand its distributional range dramatically when the competing species is experimentally removed.
Connell’s elegant field experiments showed that on the rocky sea coasts of Scotland, the larger and competitively superior barnacle Balanus dominates the intertidal area, and excludes the smaller barnacle Chathamalus from that zone. In general, herbivores and plants appear to be more adversely affected by competition than carnivores.
Gause's 'Competitive Exclusion Principle' states that two closely related species competing for the same resources cannot co-exist indefinitely and the competitively inferior one will be eliminated eventually. This may be true if resources are limiting, but not otherwise.
More recent studies do not support such gross generalisations about competition. While they do not rule out the occurrence of interspecific competition in nature, they point out that species facing competition might evolve mechanisms that promote co-existence rather than exclusion.
One such mechanism is 'resource partitioning5. If two species compete for the same resource, they could avoid competition by choosing, for instance, different times for feeding or different foraging patterns.
MacArthur showed that five closely related species of warblers living on the same tree were able to avoid competition and co-exist due to behavioural differences in their foraging activities.

Parasitism
The life cycles of parasites are often complex, involving one or two intermediate hosts or vectors to facilitate parasitisation of its primary host.
The human liver fluke (a trematode parasite) depends on two intermediate hosts (a snail and a fish) to complete its life cycle. The malarial parasite needs a vector (mosquito) to spread to other hosts.
Parasites that feed on the external surface of the host organism are called ectoparasites. The most familiar examples of this group are the lice on humans and ticks on dogs. Many marine fish are infested with ectoparasitic copepods.
Cuscuta, a parasitic plant that is commonly found growing on hedge plants, has lost its chlorophyll and leaves in the course of evolution. It derives its nutrition from the host plant which it parasitises.
The female mosquito is not considered a parasite, although it needs our blood for reproduction.
In contrast, endoparasites are those that live inside the host body at different sites (liver, kidney, lungs, red blood cells, etc.). The life cycles of endoparasites are more complex because of their extreme specialisation. Their morphological and anatomical features are greatly simplified while emphasising their reproductive potential.
Brood parasitism in birds is a fascinating example of parasitism in which the parasitic bird lays its eggs in the nest of its host and lets the host incubate them. During the course of evolution, the eggs of the parasitic bird have evolved to resemble the host's egg in size and colour to reduce the chances of the host bird detecting the foreign eggs and ejecting them from the nest. Try to follow the movements of the cuckoo (koel) and the crow in your neighborhood park during the breeding season (spring to summer) and watch brood parasitism in action.

Commensalism
This is the interaction in which one species benefits and the other is neither harmed nor benefited. An orchid growing as an epiphyte on a mango branch, and barnacles growing on the back of a whale benefit while neither the mango tree nor the whale derives any apparent benefit.
The cattle egret and grazing cattle in close association, a sight you are most likely to catch if you live in farmed rural areas, is a classic example of commensalism. The egrets always forage close to where the cattle are grazing because the cattle, as they move, stir up and flush out from the vegetation insects that otherwise might be difficult for the egrets to find and catch.
Another example of commensalism is the interaction between sea anemone that has stinging tentacles and the clown fish that lives among them. The fish gets protection from predators which stay away from the stinging tentacles. The anemone does not appear to derive any benefit by hosting the clown fish.

Mutualism
This interaction confers benefits on both the interacting species. Lichens represent an intimate mutualistic relationship between a fungus and photosynthesising algae or cyanobacteria.
Similarly, the mycorrhizae are associations between fungi and the roots of higher plants. The fungi help the plant in the absorption of essential nutrients from the soil while the plant in turn provides the fungi with energy-yielding carbohydrates.
The most spectacular and evolutionarily fascinating examples of mutualism are found in plant-animal relationships. Plants need the help of animals for pollinating their flowers and dispersing their seeds. Animals obviously have to be paid 'fees’ for the services that plants expect from them.
Plants offer rewards or fees in the form of pollen and nectar for pollinators and juicy and nutritious fruits for seed dispersers. But the mutually beneficial system should also be safeguarded against "cheaters', for example, animals that try to steal nectar without aiding in pollination.
Now we can see why plant-animal interactions often involve co-evolution of the mutualists, that is, the evolutions of the flower and its pollinator species are tightly linked with one another. In many species of fig trees, there is a tight one-to-one relationship with the pollinator species of wasp.
It means that a given fig species can be pollinated only by its 'partner’ wasp species and no other species. The female wasp uses the fruit not only as an oviposition (egg-laying) site but uses the developing seeds within the fruit for nourishing its larvae. The wasp pollinates the fig inflorescence while searching for suitable egg-laying sites. In return for the favour of pollination the fig offers the wasp some of its developing seeds, as food for the developing wasp larvae.
Orchids show a bewildering diversity of floral patterns many of which have evolved to attract the right pollinator insect (bees and bumblebees) and ensure guaranteed pollination by it. Not all orchids offer rewards.
The Mediterranean orchid Ophrys employs 'sexual deceit’ to get pollination done by a species of bee. One petal of its flower bears an uncanny resemblance to the female of the bee in size, colour and markings. The male bee is attracted to what it perceives as a female, 'pseudocopulates9 with the flower, and during that process is dusted with pollen from the flower.
When this same bee 'pseudocopulates' with another flower, it transfers pollen to it and thus, pollinates the flower.
Here we can see how co-evolution operates. If the female bee's colour patterns change even slightly for any reason during evolution, pollination success will be reduced unless the orchid flower co-evolves to maintain the resemblance of its petal to the female bee.

6. Ecosystem

An ecosystem can be visualised as a functional unit of nature, where living organisms interact among themselves and also with the surrounding physical environment.
Since this system is too much big and complex to be studied at one time, it is convenient to divide it into two basic categories, namely the terrestrial and the aquatic.
Vertical distribution of different species occupying different levels is called stratification. For example, trees occupy top vertical strata or layer of a forest, shrubs the second and herbs and grasses occupy the bottom layers.

Productivity
Primary production is defined as the amount of biomass or organic matter produced per unit area over a time period by plants during photosynthesis.
Gross primary productivity of an ecosystem is the rate of production of organic matter during photosynthesis. A considerable amount of GPP is utilised by plants in respiration. Gross primary productivity minus respiration losses (R), is the net primary productivity (NPP).
Net primary productivity is the available biomass for the consumption to heterotrophs (herbiviores and decomposers). Secondary productivity is defined as the rate of formation of new organic matter by consumers.
Primary productivity depends on the plant species inhabiting a particular area. It also depends on a variety of environmental factors, availability of nutrients and photo- synthetic capacity of plants. Therefore, it varies in different types of ecosystems.
The annual net primary productivity of the whole biosphere is approximately 170 billion tons (dry weight) of organic matter. Of this, despite occupying about 70 per cent of the surface, the productivity of the oceans are only 55 billion tons. Rest of course, is on land. Discuss the main reason for the low productivity of ocean with your teacher.

Decomposition
The earthworm being referred to as the farmer's 'friend'. This is so because they hein in the breakdown of complex organic matter as well as in loosening of the soil.
Similarly, decomposers break down complex organic matter into inorganic substances like carbon dioxide, water and nutrients and the process is called decomposition.
Dead plant remains such as leaves, bark, flowers and dead remains of animals, including fecal matter, constitute detritus, which is the raw material for decomposition. The important steps in the process of decomposition are fragmentation, leaching, catabolism, humification and mineralisation.
Decomposition is largely an oxygen-requiring process. The rate of decomposition is controlled by chemical composition of detritus and climatic factors.
In a particular climatic condition, decomposition rate is slower if detritus is rich in lignin and chitin, and quicker, if detritus is rich in nitrogen and water-soluble substances like sugars.
Temperature and soil moisture are the most important climatic factors that regulate decomposition through their effects on the activities of soil microbes. Warm and moist environment favour decomposition whereas low temperature and anaerobiosis inhibit decomposition resulting in build up of organic materials.

Energy Flow
Except for the deep sea hydro-thermal ecosystem, sun is the only source of energy for all ecosystems on Earth. Of the incident solar radiation less than 50 per cent of it is photosynthetically active radiation (PAR).
Plants capture only 2-10 per cent of the PAR and this small amount of energy sustains the entire living world.
All organisms are dependent for their food on producers, either directly or indirectly. So you find unidirectional flow of energy from the sun to producers and then to consumers.
The green plant in the ecosystem-terminology are called producers.
All animals depend on plants (directly or indirectly) for their food needs. They are hence called consumers and also heterotrophs. If they feed on the producers, the plants, they are called primary consumers, and if the animals eat other animals which in turn eat the plants (or their produce) they are called secondary consumers.
Likewise, we could have tertiary consumers too. Obviously the primary consumers will be herbivores. Some common herbivores are insects, birds and mammals in -terrestrial ecosystem and molluscs in aquatic ecosystem.
The detritus food chain (DFC) begins with dead organic matter. It is made up of decomposers which are heterotrophic organisms, mainly fungi and bacteria. They meet their energy and nutrient requirements by degrading dead organic matter or detritus. These are also known as saprotrophs (sapro: to decompose).
Decomposers secrete digestive enzymes that breakdown dead and waste materials into simple, inorganic materials, which are subsequently absorbed by them.
In an aquatic ecosystem, GFC is the major conduit for energy flow. As against this, in a terrestrial ecosystem, a much larger fraction of energy flows through the detritus food chain than through the GFC. Detritus food chain may be connected with the grazing food chain at some levels.
Some of the organisms of DFC are prey to the GFC animals, and in a natural ecosystem, some animals like cockroaches, crows, etc., are omnivores. These natural interconnection of food chains make it a food web.
The important point to note is that the amount of energy decreases at successive trophic levels. When any organism dies it is converted to detritus or dead biomass that serves as an energy source for decomposers. Organisms at each trophic level depend on those at the lower trophic level for their energy demands.
Each trophic level has a certain mass of living material at a particular time called as the standing crop. The standing crop is measured as the mass of living organisms (biomass) or the number in a unit area. The biomass of a species is expressed in terms of fresh or dry weight. Measurement of biomass in terms of dry weight is more accurate.
The number of trophic levels in the grazing food chain is restricted as the transfer of energy follows 10 per cent law - only 10 per cent of the energy is transferred to each trophic level from the lower trophic level.

Ecological Pyramids
In most ecosystems, all the pyramids, of number, of energy and biomass are upright, i.e., producers are more in number and biomass than the herbivores, and herbivores are more in number and biomass than the carnivores.
Also energy at a lower trophic level is always more than at a higher level.
Pyramid of energy is always upright, can never be inverted, because when energy flows from a particular trophic level to the next trophic level, some energy is always lost as heat at each step. Each bar in the energy pyramid indicates the amount of energy present at each trophic level in a given time or annually per unit area.

Ecological Succession
An important characteristic of all communities is that their composition and structure constantly change in response to the changing environmental conditions. This change is orderly and sequential, parallel with the changes in the physical environment. These changes lead finally to a community that is in near equilibrium with the environment and that is called a climax community.
The gradual and fairly predictable change in the species composition of a given area is called ecological succession. During succession some species colonise an area and their populations become more numerous, whereas populations of other species decline and even disappear.
Succession is hence a process that starts where no living organisms are there – these could be areas where no living organisms ever existed, say bare rock; or in areas ; that somehow, lost all the living organisms that existed there. The former is called primary succession, while the latter is termed secondary succession.
Examples of areas where primary succession occurs are newly cooled lava, bare rock, newly created pond or reservoir. The establishment of a new biotic community is generally slow. Before a biotic community of diverse organisms can become established, there must be soil. Depending mostly on the climate, it takes natural processes several hundred to several thousand years to produce fertile soil on bare
Secondary succession begins in areas where natural biotic communities have been destroyed such as in abandoned farm lands, burned or cut forests, lands that have been flooded. Since some soil or sediment is present, succession is faster than primary succession.
At any time during primary or secondary succession, natural or human induced disturbances (fire, deforestation, etc.), can convert a particular serai stage of succession to an earlier stage. Also such disturbances create new conditions that encourage some species and discourage or eliminate other species.
The species that invade a bare area are called pioneer species. In primary succession on rocks these are usually lichens which are able to secrete acids to dissolve rock, helping in weathering and soil formation. These later pave way to some very small plants like bryophytes, which are able to take hold in the small amount of soil.
They are, with time, succeeded by bigger plants, and after several more stages, ultimately a stable climax forest community is formed. The climax community remains stable as long as the environment remains unchanged. With time the xerophytic habitat gets converted into a mesophytic one.
In primary succession in water, the pioneers are the small phytoplanktons, they are replaced with time by rooted-submerged plants, rooted-floating angiosperms followed by free-floating plants, then reedswamp, marsh-meadow, scrub and finally the trees. The climax again would be a forest. With time the water body is converted into land.

Nutrient Cycling
Nutrients which are never lost from the ecosystems, are recycled time and again indefinitely.
The movement of nutrient elements through the various components of an ecosystem is called nutrient cycling. Another name of nutrient cycling is biogeochemical cycles (bio : living organism, geo : rocks, air, water). Nutrient cycles are of two types : gaseous and sedimentary.
The reservoir for gaseous type of nutrient cycle (e.g., nitrogen, carbon cycle) exists in the atmosphere and for the sedimentary cycle (e.g., sulphur and phosphorus cycle), the reservoir is located in Earth's crust. Environmental factors, e.g., soil, moisture, pH, temperature, etc., regulate the rate of release of nutrients into the atmosphere. The function of the reservoir is to meet with the deficit which occurs due to imbalance in the rate of influx and efflux.

Ecosystem - Carbon Cycle
The composition of living organisms, carbon constitutes 49 per cent of dry weight of organisms and is next only to water. If we look at the total quantity of global carbon, we find that 71 per cent carbon is found dissolved in oceans. This oceanic reservoir regulates the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The atmosphere only contains about 1 per cent of total global carbon?
Fossil fuel also represent a reservoir of carbon. Carbon cycling occurs through atmosphere, ocean and through living and dead organisms. According to one estimate \[4\times {{10}^{13}}\] kg of carbon is fixed in the biosphere through photosynthesis annually.
A considerable amount of carbon returns to the atmosphere as \[C{{O}^{2}}\] through respiratory activities of the producers and consumers. Decomposers also contribute substantially to \[C{{O}_{2}}\] pool by their processing of waste materials and dead organic matter of land or oceans.
Some amount of the fixed carbon is lost to sediments and removed from circulation. Burning of wood, forest fire and combustion of organic matter, fossil fuel, volcanic activity are additional sources for releasing \[C{{O}_{2}}\] in the atmosphere.
Human activities have significantly influenced the carbon cycle. Rapid deforestation and massive burning of fossil fuel for energy and transport have significantly increased the rate of release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Ecosystem - Phosphorus Cycle
Phosphorus is a major constituent of biological membranes, nucleic acids and cellular energy transfer systems. Many animals also need large quantities of this element to make shells, bones and teeth.
The natural reservoir of phosphorus is rock, which contains phosphorus in the form of phosphates. When rocks are weathered, minute amounts of these phosphates dissolve in soil solution and are absorbed by the roots of the plants.
Herbivores and other animals obtain this element from plants. The waste products and the dead organisms are decomposed by phosphate-solubilising bacteria releasing phosphorus.
Unlike carbon cycle, there is no respiratory release of phosphorus into atmosphere. There is a two difference between the carbon and the phosphorus cycle?
Firstly, atmospheric inputs of phosphorus through rainfall are much smaller than carbon inputs, and, secondly, gaseous exchanges of phosphorus between organism , and environment are negligible.

Ecosystem Services
The products of ecosystem processes are named as ecosystem services, for example, healthy forest ecosystems purify air and water, mitigate droughts and floods, cycle nutrients, generate fertile soils, provide wildlife habitat, maintain biodiversity, pollinate crops, provide storage site for carbon and also provide aesthetic, cultural and spiritual values.
Robert Constanza and his colleagues have very recently tried to put price tags on nature's life-support services. Researchers have put an average price tag of US \[\$\] 33 trillion a year on these fundamental ecosystems services, which are largely taken for granted because they are free. This is nearly twice the value of the global gross national product GNP which is (US \[\$\] 18 trillion).
Out of the total cost of various ecosystem services, the soil formation accounts for about 50 per cent, and contributions of other services like recreation and nutrient cycling, are less than 10 per cent each. The cost of climate regulation and habitat for wildlife are about 6 per cent each.

UPSC Biology Ecology and Ecosystem Biodiversity Ecology

Other Topics

NCERT Extracts - Ecology