Energy flow and Nutrient Cycling

Ecology is the study of the interactions of organisms with both their biotic (living)
environment and their abiotic (physical) environment.

Ecosystem
-A biological community together with the associated abiotic environment.
-The interactions that take place between all organisms in a community and their
non-living environment
-The inter-relationship of the living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) elements in any
biological system. Two major factors with an ecosystem are the flow of energy
through the system and the cycling of matter with the system.

Habitat
-Comprises the conditions that influence an organism's life activities and describe
the location where the organism is able to survive and reproduce.
- e.g. rocky shore, a freshwater pond, a beech wood.

Ecological Niche
-A niche comprises the resources that the organism exploits to meet its energy,
nutrient, and survival demands.
-A niche is the role of n organism in an ecosystem.
-The position any species occupies within its habitat and represents more than a
physical area within the habitat as it includes an organism's behaviour and
interactions with its living and non-living environment. No two species can occupy
the same ecological niche.

Population
-All the organisms of the same species at the locale
-A group of organisms of the same species that lives in the same place at the same
time

Community
-A group of many different populations that interact with one another
-All the organisms, of all the different species, that live in the same place at the
same time
The study of the flow of energy through the ecosystem is known as ecological
energetics.
Primary consumers are all autotrophs and include some bacteria as well as green
plants.
Energy is passed along a chain or organisms known as a food chain. Each feeding
level in the chain is called a trophic level. Only a small proportion of the available
energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next. Much energy is lost as heat
during respiratory processes of each organism in the chain. it is this loss of energy
at each stage which limits the length of food chains