(par 3. 4.1) The Food Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_web From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A food web (or food cycle) is the natural interconnection offood chains and generally a graphical representation (usually an image) of what-eats-what in an ecological community. Another name forfood web is a consumer-resource system. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) theautotrophs, and 2) theheterotrophs. To maintaintheir bodies, grow, […]
(par 3. 4.1) Trophic levels and the effects of biomass on availablity of energy
http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/102/ecosystem.html Overview The main concepts we are trying to get across in this section concern how energy moves through an ecosystem. If you can understand this, you are in good shape, because then you have an idea of how ecosystems are balanced, how they may be affected by human activities, and how pollutants will move […]
(par 3. 4 ) Ordered biologigal systems and Enthropy
Biological Systems are highly ordered. How does it square up with Enthropy? http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/bioentropy.html#c1 Energy and Order in Biological Systems The concept of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics suggests that systems naturally progress from order to disorder. If so, how do biological systems develop and maintain such a high degree of order? Is this […]