Energy Relations in Ecosystems

Having learnt about the energy requirements (supplement) of a single individual organism, we will now focus our attention on the energy production and utilization of ecosystem. Such a study is important as all the organisms obtain their energy requirements from the food available in the habits they live. The organisms and its habitat are parts of ecosystem. In other words, energy in the form of food must be available to the organism in ecosystem. This is possible only when the energy (food) is produced in the ecosystem. Therefore, it is important to study the production and utilization of energy in ecosystem.

When herbivores consume the plants, the organic matter stored in plants and enters the body of the herbivores. Not all the energy stored in this organic matter is available or used up by the animal. Some of the food (in which energy stored in chemical form) obtained from the plants cannot be digested by the animals   (cellouse, lignin etc.) as fecal matter.

Therefore the energy present in this amount of food cannot be used by herbivores. During respiration, some of the chemical energy present in the food is lost as heat and cannot be used by the animal. Therefore, of the total amount of energy present in the food, only a portion of energy is used for growth and maintenance of herbivores. This can be considered as productivity by the herbivore. This is called secondary productivity. In general, herbivores makes less efficient use of energy stored in their food (because of cellouse, lignin etc.) than herbivores.

There is a lot of difference between Energy requirement and energy supplement. In biology, energy balance is the biological homeostasis of energy in living systems and Energy supplement define as a supplement designed to enhance the mental or physical energy levels.

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