EESA01H3 Lecture Notes - Denitrification, Metapopulation, Heterotroph
Document Summary
Our planet"s environment consists of complex networks of interlinked systems. Earth uses cycles that shape the landscapes around us and guide the flow of key chemical elements and compounds that support life and regulate climate. System is a network of relationships among parts, elements, or components that interact with and influence one another through the exchange of energy, matter, or information. Open systems are systems that receive input of both energy and matter and produce outputs of both. Closed systems receive inputs and produce outputs of energy, but not matter: in nature, no system is perfectly closed. Energy inputs to the earth"s environmental systems include: solar radiation, heat released by geothermal activity, organismal metabolism , human activities (eg. fossil fuel combustion) Information energy can come in the form of sensory cues from: visual signs, olfactory (chemical) signs , magnetic signs , thermal signs . Inputs of matter occur when chemicals or physical material moves among systems: eg.
