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Ansh Guglani/Pd.3

Ms. Sokolowsky

AP Biology

2 September 2010

Ecology Unit Essay #2

Energy travels through several trophic levels, or a step in the movement of energy

through an ecosystem, to reach the organisms of an ecosystem. The first of these trophic levels

is that of the detritivores, which differ greatly from organisms in other trophic levels in that they

consume the remains of dead organisms. In fact, a subcategory of detritivores is decomposers,

consisting of microbes and other minute organisms which obtain their energy from dead organic

matter, breaking it up in the process. In the Artic Lake of Alaska, the larvae of chironomids, the

larvae of caddis flies, and the snails belong to this trophic level as they obtain their energy

through the consumption and digestion of dead terrestrial plant material. The next trophic level

consists of primary producers and autotrophs, or organisms that are able to build all the complex

organic molecules that they require as their own food source, using only simple inorganic

compounds such CO2, water, and NO3. Autotrophs that use light as their source of energy are

called photoautotrophs; they are photosynthetic such as the aquatic plants, algae, and

phytoplankton in the Artic Lake. The next trophic level consists of primary consumers, or

herbivores, which are organisms that obtain energy by the consumption and digestion of green

plants. In the case of the Artic Lake, primary consumers such as the zooplankton, snails, larvae

of chironomids, and the larvae of caddis flies feed on available green plants such as the

phytoplankton, algae, aquatic plants, and dead terrestrial plants. The primary carnivores are the

organisms belonging to the next trophic level, which obtain their energy through the
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consumption and digestion of those belonging to the previous trophic level of herbivores. For

example, in the Arctic Lake the grayling, a small fish, will feast on zooplankton, the sculpin,

another small fish, will feast on the larvae of chironomids, and the lake trout, a large fish, will

feast on the larvae of caddis flies. In this case there is an additional trophic level, called the

secondary carnivores, made up solely by the lake trout. This is due to the fact that the lake trout

also obtain much of their energy through the consumption and digestion of some of the primary

carnivorous trophic level, such as the grayling and sculpin, both of which are small fish living in

the Arctic Lake of Alaska.

The efficiency of energy transfer between trophic levels is not perfect in an ecosystem

and the amount of energy available at each trophic level affects the structure of an ecosystem.

For example, herbivores such as leaf-eating insects consume food, but also produce feces.

Therefore, not all of the chemical-bond energy is passed down from one trophic level to the next

because, in this example, the organisms belonging to the primary carnivore trophic level will not

consume to feces of the leaf-eating insect. For this reason, ecologists have a rule of thumb that

the amount of chemical-bond energy available from one trophic level to the next (in an overall

efficient ecosystem) over a period of time is about 10% of that available to the preceding level

over the same period of time. However, in some instances these percentages can reach as high

as 30%. There are many reasons that ecosystems are as inefficient as they are. One of the big

reasons is that essentially all of the chemical-bond energy captured by photosynthesis in the

primary producers trophic level eventually becomes heat, as this energy is used by various

trophic levels. For example, when detritivores in an ecosystem metabolize all of the materials,

such as dead bodies and feces, they produce heat as do the other trophic levels. In addition,

because of the First Law of Thermodynamics energy cannot be created or destroyed in the
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biosphere causing the energy in a system to become so dispersed (usually as evenly distributed

heat) that it is no longer available to do work.

One of the main effects on the food web in question would be the widespread death of

many of the larger organisms in the aquatic ecosystem; such as the smaller sculpin fish and the

larger grayling fish. The death of these two larger organisms is not necessarily due directly to

the impact of the toxin itself, but possibly because the toxin brought death to the carnivores’

food such as the snails and the larvae. This in turn results in the death of the lake trout. Not only

does this toxin affect the upper trophic levels, it reaps short-term benefits the lower trophic

levels. For example, now that the consumers of it are gone, the zooplankton will flourish.

However, the over accumulation of zooplankton will eventually bring about the death of the

zooplankton themselves. These are some of the many negative effects of the presence of toxins

in an aquatic ecosystem.