ENV100Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Biogeochemical Cycle, Water Cycle, Photic Zone

• School: UTM
• Department: Environment
• Course: ENV100Y5
• Professor: Barbara Murck

Document Summary

Chapter 3 - ecosystem ecology (part 2) Energy converted by primary producers. Always thinking about what"s moving, etc. concerned with movement of energy. Energy coming in = only autotrophs can make it available for other systems. Net primary productivity (npp) = gross primary productivity (gpp)- respiration by autotrophs. Npp = energy available to consumers & decomposers. Gpp - amount of solar energy being fixed by plants (some used for respiration). Plants fix and burn co2. Npp - amount of energy now available for photosynthesis (consumers/decomposers)- is a rate. Terrestrial ecosystems:max npp in wet tropics. Marine ecosystems: max npp along coastlines. Limits to productivity in aquatic ecosystems: Coastlines more productive than open ocean. How major nutrients move around. Involve biological, geological, atmospheric reservoirs. Substances move among these reservoirs and may take several chemical forms. Residence time in these reservoirs may be seconds, days, years, millennia, millions of years.