net consumer productivity

Examples of net consumer productivity in the following topics:

• Transferring of Energy between Trophic Levels

  • $TLTE=\frac { production\quad at\quad present\quad trophic\quad level }{ production\quad at\quad previous\quad trophic\quad level } x100$
  • Another main parameter that is important in characterizing energy flow within an ecosystem is the net production efficiency.
  • Net production efficiency (NPE) allows ecologists to quantify how efficiently organisms of a particular trophic level incorporate the energy they receive into biomass.
  • Net consumer productivity is the energy content available to the organisms of the next trophic level.
  • Arrows point from an organism that is consumed to the organism that consumes it.

• Productivity within Trophic Levels

  • Productivity, measured by gross and net primary productivity, is defined as the amount of energy that is incorporated into a biomass.
  • Because all organisms need to use some of this energy for their own functions (such as respiration and resulting metabolic heat loss), scientists often refer to the net primary productivity of an ecosystem.
  • Net primary productivity is the energy that remains in the primary producers after accounting for the organisms' respiration and heat loss.
  • The net productivity is then available to the primary consumers at the next trophic level.
  • Explain the concept of primary production and distinguish between gross primary production and net primary production

• Abiotic Factors Influencing Plant Growth

  • Temperature and moisture are important influences on plant production (primary productivity) and the amount of organic matter available as food (net primary productivity).
  • Net primary productivity is an estimation of all of the organic matter available as food.
  • In terrestrial environments, net primary productivity is estimated by measuring the aboveground biomass per unit area, which is the total mass of living plants, excluding roots.
  • Net primary productivity is an important variable when considering differences in biomes.
  • Environments with the greatest amount of biomass have conditions in which photosynthesis, plant growth, and the resulting net primary productivity are optimized.

• Mutualistic Relationships with Fungi and Fungivores

  • In exchange, the plant supplies the products of photosynthesis to fuel the metabolism of the fungus.
  • Ectomycorrhizae ("outside" mycorrhiza) depend on fungi enveloping the roots in a sheath (called a mantle) and a Hartig net of hyphae that extends into the roots between cells .
  • Once smaller sugar molecules are produced and consumed by the fungi, the fungi in turn become a meal for the ants.

• The Energy Cycle

  • But if plants make carbohydrate molecules, why would they need to break them down, especially when it has been shown that the gas organisms release as a "waste product" (CO2) acts as a substrate for the formation of more food in photosynthesis?
  • Photosynthesis consumes carbon dioxide and produces oxygen.
  • Aerobic respiration consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide.
  • Photosynthesis consumes carbon dioxide and produces oxygen.
  • Aerobic respiration consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide.

• Ecological Pyramids

  • However, during the summer in a temperate forest, the base of the pyramid consists of few trees compared with the number of primary consumers, mostly insects.
  • However, the phytoplankton in the English Channel example make up less biomass than the primary consumers, the zooplankton.
  • As with inverted pyramids of numbers, the inverted biomass pyramid is not due to a lack of productivity from the primary producers, but results from the high turnover rate of the phytoplankton.
  • The phytoplankton are consumed rapidly by the primary consumers, which minimizes their biomass at any particular point in time.
  • Pyramids of energy are always upright, since energy is lost at each trophic level; an ecosystem without sufficient primary productivity cannot be supported.

• Connecting Other Sugars to Glucose Metabolism

  • Sugars, such as galactose, fructose, and glycogen, are catabolized into new products in order to enter the glycolytic pathway.
  • But living things consume more than glucose for food.
  • Many of the substrates, intermediates, and products in a particular pathway are reactants in other pathways.
  • Glycogen is broken down into G-1-P and converted into glucose-6-phosphate (G-6-P) in both muscle and liver cells; this product enters the glycolytic pathway.
  • In areas where milk products are regularly consumed, adults have also evolved this enzyme.

• Digestive Systems

  • Animals use the organs of their digestive systems to extract important nutrients from food they consume, which can later be absorbed.
  • The food consumed consists of protein, fat, and complex carbohydrates , but the requirements of each are different for each animal.
  • The conversion of the food consumed to the nutrients required is a multi-step process involving digestion and absorption.
  • The functions of the digestive system can be summarized as follows: ingestion (eat food), digestion (breakdown of food), absorption (extraction of nutrients from the food), and defecation (removal of waste products).

• Processes of the Light-Dependent Reactions

  • This process illustrates oxygenic photosynthesis, wherein the first electron donor is water and oxygen is created as a waste product.
  • In cyclic photophosphorylation, cytochrome b6f uses the energy of electrons from both PSII and PSI to create more ATP and to stop the production of NADPH.
  • The net-reaction of all light-dependent reactions in oxygenic photosynthesis is: 2H2O + 2NADP+ + 3ADP + 3Pi → O2 + 2NADPH + 3ATP
  • The net result is a low pH in the thylakoid lumen and a high pH in the stroma.
  • In (a) photosystem II, the electron comes from the splitting of water, which releases oxygen as a waste product.

• The Purpose and Process of Photosynthesis

  • Plants use these compounds in all of their metabolic processes; plants do not need to consume other organisms for food because they build all the molecules they need.
  • Unlike plants, animals need to consume other organisms to consume the molecules they need for their metabolic processes.
  • The energy extracted today by the burning of coal and petroleum products represents sunlight energy captured and stored by photosynthesis almost 200 million years ago.