Ecological energetics

(ecology) The study of the flow of energy within an ecological system from the time the energy enters the living system until it is ultimately degraded to heat and irretrievably lost from the system. Also known as production ecology.

The study of the flow of energy within an ecological system from the time the energy enters the living system until it is ultimately degraded to heat and irretrievably lost from the system. It is also referred to as production ecology, because ecologists use the word production to describe the process of energy input and storage in ecosystems.

Ecological energetics provides information on the energetic interdependence of organisms within ecological systems and the efficiency of energy transfer within and between organisms and trophic levels. Nearly all energy enters the biota by green plants' transformation of light energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis; this is referred to as primary production. This accumulation of potential energy is used by plants, and by the animals which eat them, for growth, reproduction, and the work necessary to sustain life. The energy put into growth and reproduction is termed secondary production. As energy passes along the food chain to higher trophic levels (from plants to herbivores to carnivores), the potential energy is used to do work and in the process is degraded to heat. The laws of thermodynamics require the light energy fixed by plants to equal the energy degraded to heat, assuming the system is closed with respect to matter. An energy budget quantifies the energy pools, the directions of energy flow, and the rates of energy transformations within ecological systems. See also Biological productivity; Food web; Photosynthesis.

The essentials of ecological energetics can be most readily appreciated by considering energy flowing through an individual; it is equally applicable to populations, communities, and ecosystems. Of the food energy available, only part is harvested in the process of foraging. Some is wasted, for example, by messy eaters, and the rest consumed. Part of the consumed food is transformed but is not utilized by the body, leaving as fecal material or as nitrogenous waste, the by-product of protein metabolism. The remaining energy is assimilated into the body, part of which is used to sustain the life functions and to do work—this is manifest as oxygen consumption. The remainder of the assimilated energy is used to produce new tissue, either as growth of the individual or as development of offspring. Hence production is also the potential energy (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates) on which other organisms feed. Production leads to an increase in biomass or is eliminated through death, migration, predation, or the shedding of, for example, hair, skin, and antlers.

Energy flows through the consumer food chain (from plants to herbivores to carnivores) or through the detritus food chain. The latter is fueled by the waste products of the consumer food chain, such as feces, shed skin, cadavers, and nitrogenous waste. Most detritus is consumed by microorganisms, although this food chain includes conspicuous carrion feeders like beetles and vultures. In terrestrial systems, more than 90% of all primary production may be consumed by detritus feeders. In aquatic systems, where the plants do not require tough supporting tissues, harvesting by herbivores may be efficient with little of the primary production passing to the detrivores.

Traditionally the calorie, a unit of heat energy, has been used in ecological energetics, but this has been largely replaced by the joule. Production is measured from individual growth rates and the reproductive rate of the population to determine the turnover time. The energy equivalent of food consumed, feces, and production can be determined by measuring the heat evolved on burning a sample in an oxygen bomb calorimeter, or by chemical analysis—determining the amount of carbon or of protein, carbohydrate, and lipid and applying empirically determined caloric equivalents to the values. The latter three contain, respectively, 16.3, 23.7, and 39.2 kilojoules per gram of dry weight. Maintenance costs are usually measured indirectly as respiration (normally the oxygen consumed) in the laboratory and extrapolated to the field conditions. Error is introduced by the fact that animals have different levels of activity in the field and are subject to different temperatures, and so uncertainty has surrounded these extrapolations. Oxygen consumption has been measured in animals living in the wild by using the turnover rates of doubly labeled water (D₂O).

Due to the loss of usable energy with each transformation, in an area more energy can be diverted into production by plants than by consumer populations. For humans this means that utilizing plants for food directly is energetically much more efficient than converting them to eggs or meat. See also Biomass; Ecological communities; Ecosystem.

The study of the flow of energy from the sun through and up the trophic levels, expressed in calories. This energy may be fixed in the form of food. With movement up each trophic level, there is a very great loss of the energy available as food. The study of energetics highlights the importance of micro-organisms within ecosystems and stresses the danger of destroying these minute forms of life.

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