Reflection Blog on Ecology

Last week I learned about the ecosystem. The ecosystem is the interaction of a community with its environment. I learned about abiotic factors, which are physical, non-living parts of an ecosystem. Examples of abiotic factors are rocks, water, air, and temperature. Biotic factors are relationships between living things. I also learned about producers, that produce food. Autotrophs make their own food. Consumers feed on other organisms. Heterotrophs cannot make their own food, and herbivores feed only on plants. A carnivore feeds on animals. I also learned about decomposers. Decomposers break down dead organisms, and recycle materials in the ecosystem. Examples of this is bacteria, mold, and fungi. Food chains are a diagram showing the feeding relationships. For example grass, mice, and hawks. Last week I also learned about energy flow in an ecosystem. Energy comes from the sun. Energy flows in one direction from producers to various levels of consumers. A food chain is a simple energy path through an ecosystem, while a food web is a more realistic and complex path through an ecosystem of many food chains. There are tropic levels. Each level in a food chain or food web is a trophic level. Producers are always the first tropic level. The second tropic level are the herbivores. Carnivores and omnivores make up the remaining tropic levels. The Cycles of matter are water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle. The water cycle is evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, runoff, seepage, and root uptake. I learned also about nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation is nitrogen molecules converted into ammonia. Nitrification is nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia into nitrates. The roots of the plants then use these nitrates in the soil to make proteins. Denitrification is bacteris converting the nitrates in the soil back to nitrogen gas, releasing gas back into the atmosphere.