Structure of ecosystem
Ecosystem comprises of two major components.
They are:
i.
Abiotic (non-living) components: It includes climatic factors (air,
water, sunlight, rainfall, temperature and humidity), edaphic factors (soil
air, soil water and pH of soil),topography (latitude, altitude), organic
components (carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and humic substances) and inorganic
substances (C, H, O, N and P ). Abiotic components play vital role in any
ecosystem and hence the total inorganic substances present in any ecosystem at
a given time is called standing quality (or) standing state.
ii.
Biotic (living) components: It includes all living organisms
like plants, animals, fungi and bacteria. They form the trophic structures of
any ecosystem. On the basis of nutritional relationships, trophic levels of an
ecosystem has two components.
(1) autotrophic components and (2) heterotrophic
components.
1. Autotrophic components: Autotrophs are
organisms which can manufacture the organic compounds from simple inorganic
components through a process called photosynthesis. In most of the ecosystems,
green plants are the autotrophs and are also called producers.
2. Heterotrophic components: Those organisms
which consume the producers are called consumers and can be recognized
into macro and micro consumers. Macroconsumers refer to herbivores,
carnivores and omnivores (primary, secondary and tertiary consumers). Microconsumers
are called decomposers. Decomposers are organisms that decompose the
dead plants and animals to release organic and inorganic nutrients into the
environment which are again reused by plants. Example: Bacteria, Actinomycetes
and Fungi.
The amount of living materials present in a population at any
given time is known as standing crop, which may be expressed in terms of
number or biomass per unit area. Biomass can be measured as fresh weight
or dry weight or carbon weight of organisms. Biotic components are
essential to construct the food chain, food web and ecological pyramids.
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