Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The productivity of an ecosystem is influenced by a wide range of factors, including nutrient availability, temperature, and water availability. Understanding ecological productivity is vital because it provides insights into how ecosystems function and the extent to which they can support life.
Net ecosystem production (NEP) in ecology, limnology, and oceanography, is the difference between gross primary production (GPP) and net ecosystem respiration. [1] Net ecosystem production represents all the carbon produced by plants in water through photosynthesis that does not get respired by animals , other heterotrophs , or the plants ...
Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of living and non-living components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework. This science examines how ecosystems work and relates this to their components such as chemicals , bedrock , soil , plants , and animals .
It was the first successful attempt to study an entire watershed as an ecosystem. The study used stream chemistry as a means of monitoring ecosystem properties, and developed a detailed biogeochemical model of the ecosystem. [35] Long-term research at the site led to the discovery of acid rain in North America in 1972.
Odum's contributions to ecosystems ecology have been recognized by the Mars Society, who named their experimental station the "H. T. Odum Greenhouse" at the suggestion of his former student Patrick Kangas. Kangas and his student, David Blersch, made significant contributions to the design of the waste water recycling system on the station.
An often-cited example of a bottom-up effect is the relationship between herbivores and the primary productivity of plants. In terrestrial ecosystems, the biomass of herbivores and detritivores increases with primary productivity. An increase in primary productivity will result in a larger influx of leaf litter into the soil ecosystem, which ...
Predator productivity is correlated with prey productivity. This confirms that the primary productivity in ecosystems affects all productivity following. [20] Detritus is a large portion of organic material in ecosystems. Organic material in temperate forests is mostly made up of dead plants, approximately 62%. [18]
Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history. Ecology is a branch of biology, and is the study of abundance, biomass, and distribution of organisms in the context of the environment.