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Ecological pyramid

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An energy pyramid is a presentation of the trophic levels in an ecosystem. Energy from the sun is transferred through the ecosystem by passing through various trophic levels. Roughly 10% of the energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next, thus preventing a large number of trophic levels. There must be higher amounts of biomass at the bottom of the pyramid to support the energy and biomass requirements of the higher trophic levels.

An ecological pyramid (also trophic pyramid, eltonian pyramid, energy pyramid, or sometimes food pyramid) is a graphical representation designed to show the biomass or bio productivity at each trophic level in a given ecosystem.

Biomass pyramids show how much biomass (the amount of living or organic matter present in an organism) is present in the organisms at each trophic level, while productivity pyramids show the procreation or turnover in biomass. There is also pyramid of numbers which represent the number of organisms in each trophic level. They may be upright (e.g. Grassland ecosystem), inverted (parasitic ecosystem) or dumbbell shaped (forest ecosystem).

Energy pyramids begin with producers on the bottom (such as plants) and proceed through the various trophic levels (such as herbivores that eat plants, then carnivores that eat flesh, then omnivores that eat both plants and flesh, and so on). The highest level is the top of the food chain.

History

The concept of pyramid of numbers ("Eltonian pyramid") was developed by Charles Elton (1927).[1] Later, it would also be expressed in terms of biomass by Bodenheimer (1938).[2]

The idea of pyramid of productivity or energy relies on works of G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Raymond Lindeman (1942).[3][4]

Pyramid of numbers

A numbers pyramid shows the relevant number of organisms that each trophic level occupies in an ecosystem. Often, there are more producers than consumers, however, it can also be seen in many ecosystems that there are more primary consumers than producers.

A "pyramid of numbers" shows graphically the population of each level in a food chain. It is an upright pyramid given in an ecosystem, always the producers are more in number than any other Trophic level. This shows the number of organisms in each trophic level without any consideration for their size. This type of pyramid can be convenient, as counting is often a simple task and can be done over the years to observe the changes in a particular ecosystem. However, some types of organisms are difficult to count, especially when it comes to some juvenile forms. Unit: number of organisms.

Pyramid of biomass

A biomass pyramid shows the total mass of the organisms that each trophic level occupies in an ecosystem. Usually, producers have a higher biomass than any other trophic level, but there can be lower amounts of biomass at the bottom of the pyramid if the rate of primary production per unit biomass is very fast.

A "pyramid of biomass" shows the relationship between biomass and trophic level by quantifying the biomass present at each trophic level of an energy community at a particular time. It is a graphical representation of biomass (total amount of living or organic matter in an ecosystem) present in unit area in different tropic levels. Typical units are grams per meter2, or calories per meter2. The pyramid of biomass may be "inverted". For example, in a pond ecosystem, the standing crop of phytoplankton, the major producers, at any given point will be lower than the mass of the heterotrophs, such as fish and insects. This is explained as the phytoplankton reproduce very quickly, but have much shorter individual lives.

One problem with biomass pyramids is that they can make a trophic level appear to contain more energy than it actually does. For example, all birds have beaks and skeletons, which despite having mass are not typically digested by the next trophic level.

Pyramid of Energy

A "pyramid of productivity" is often more useful, showing the production or turnover (the rate at which energy or mass is transferred from one trophic level to the next) of biomass at each trophic level. Instead of showing a single snapshot in time, productivity pyramids show the flow of energy through the food chain. Typical units are grams per meter2 per year or calories per meter2 per year. As with the others, this graph shows producers at the bottom and higher trophic levels on top.

When an ecosystem is healthy, this graph produces a standard ecological pyramid. This is because in order for the ecosystem to sustain itself, there must be more energy at lower trophic levels than there is at higher trophic levels. This allows organisms on the lower levels to not only to maintain a stable population, but also to transfer energy up the pyramid. The exception to this generalization is when portions of a food web are supported by inputs of resources from outside the local community. In small, forested streams, for example, the volume of higher levels is greater than could be supported by the local primary production.

When energy is transferred to the next trophic level, typically only 10% of it is used to build new biomass, becoming stored energy (the rest going to metabolic processes) (Pauly and Christensen, 1995). In this case, in the pyramid of productivity each step will be 10% the size of the previous step (100,000, 10,000, 1,000, 100, 10, 1, .1, .01).

The advantages of the pyramid of productivity as a representation:

  • It takes account of the rate of production over a period of time.
  • Two species of comparable biomass may have very different life spans. Thus a direct comparison of their total biomasses is misleading, but their productivity is directly comparable.
  • The relative energy chain within an ecosystem can be compared using pyramids of energy; also different ecosystems can be compared.
  • There are no inverted pyramids.
  • The input of solar energy can be added.

The disadvantages of the pyramid of productivity as a representation:

  • The rate of biomass production of an organism is required, which involves measuring growth and reproduction through time.
  • There is still the difficulty of assigning the organisms to a specific trophic level. As well as the organisms in the food chains there is the problem of assigning the decomposers and detritivores to a particular trophic level.

Nonetheless, productivity pyramids usually provide more insight into an ecological community when the necessary information is available.

See also

References

  1. ^ Elton, C. 1927. Animal Ecology. New York, Macmillan Co. link.
  2. ^ Bodenheimer, F. S. 1938. Problems of Animal Ecology. Oxford University Press. link.
  3. ^ Lindeman, R. L. (1942). The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology. Ecology 23: 399–418. link.
  4. ^ Trebilco, R., Baum, J.K., Salomon, A.K., Dulvy, N.K. 2013. Ecosystem ecology: size-based constraints on the pyramids of life. Trends Ecol. Evol. 28, 423–431. link.

Bibliography

  • Odum, E.P. 1971. Fundamentals of Ecology. Third Edition. W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia,
  • Pauly, D. and Christensen, V. 1995 Primary production required to sustain global fisheries. Nature 374.6519: 255-257.
( pyramid of energy)

( pyramid number)

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