Question

Why is energy flow through an ecosystem dependent upon continual energy transformations?

Answer 1

NextAn ecosystem is a community of organisms and their abiotic(non-living) environment. Ecosystems canbe small, such as the tide pools found near the rocky shores of many oceans, or large,such as those found in the tropical rainforest of theAmazon in Brazil (Figure 1 below).Figure 1. A (a) tidal pool ecosystem in Matinicus Island, Maine, isa small ecosystem, while the (b) Amazon rainforest in Brazil is a large ecosystem. (credit a: modification of work by Jim Kuhn; credit b: modification of work by Ivan Mlinaric)There are three broad categories of ecosystems based on their general environment: freshwater, marine, and terrestrial. Within these three categoriesare individual ecosystem types based on the environmental habitat and organisms present.Ecology of EcosystemsThere are important variables that determine which organisms can exist within a particular environment. Life in an ecosystem often involves competition for limited resources, which occurs both within a single species and between different species. Organisms compete for things such as food, water, sunlight, space, and mineral nutrients. Other critical factors that influence biological communities are related to the physical environment, such as climate,elevation, and geology.Freshwater ecosystemsare the least common, occurring on only 1.8 percentof Earth’s surface. These systems comprise lakes, rivers, streams, and springs; they are quite diverse and support a variety of animals, plants, fungi, protists and prokaryotes.Marine ecosystemsare the most common, comprising 75 percent of Earth’s surface and consisting of three basic types: shallow ocean, deep ocean water, and deep oceanbottom. Shallowocean ecosystems include extremely biodiverse coralreef ecosystems. Small photosynthetic organisms suspended in ocean waters, collectively known as phytoplankton,perform 40 percent of all photosynthesis on Earth. Deep ocean bottom ecosystems contain a wide variety of marine organisms. These ecosystems are so deep that light is unable to reach them.Terrestrial ecosystems, also known for their diversity, are grouped intolarge categoriescalled biomes. A biome is a large-scale community of organisms, primarily defined on land by the dominantplant types that exist in geographic regions of the planet with similar climatic conditions. Examples of biomes include tropical rainforests, savannas, deserts, grasslands, temperate forests, and tundras. Grouping these ecosystems into just a few biome categories obscures the great diversity of the individualecosystems within them. Forexample, the saguaro cacti (Carnegiea gigantean) and other plant life in the Sonoran Desert, in the United States, are relatively diverse compared with the desolate rocky desert of Boa Vista, an island off the coast of Western Africa (Figure 2 below).

Answer 2

Due to the universal law of the energy equilibrium,the cannot be destroyed or cannot be generated independently.

We can just change the form of the energy.

That's why while energy in flowing through the different components of an ecosystem,it changes it's form to become containble by the different components of the nature.