SOS 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Complex Adaptive System, Heterotroph, Thermodynamics
Document Summary
Ecosystem: ecological community interacting with the physical environment where a flow of energy produces clearly defined biotic structures. First law of thermodynamics: energy is neither created nor destroyed, but it is transformed. Survival: building blocks of all living things, elements, complex molecules made up of elements, organic forms. Complex adaptive systems: all living systems are energy systems, all energy systems are complex adaptive systems, complex adaptive systems have both "collective" and "emergent" properties, collective: parts=whole, emergent: whole>sum of parts. Living or dead: dead organic matter, detritus, abiotic: non-living materials, not associated with living organisms. Inorganic matter: the abiotic "building blocks" that organisms use to make new organic matter: minerals, nutrients, water, co2, decomposition: process of detritus breaking down. Just to stay alive: net primary productivity: carbon fixed but not used for respiration, carbon available for growth of new biomass, npp, to grow/reproduce!