2.4 How Energy Flows – Photosynthesis, Trophic Levels, and Food Webs
Atoms are the smallest and most fundamental unit of matter in the universe, and cells are the smallest unit of life on Earth. Cells run on the chemical energy found mainly in carbohydrate molecules, and the majority of these molecules are produced by one process: photosynthesis. Through photosynthesis, certain organisms convert solar energy (sunlight) into chemical energy, which is then used to build carbohydrate molecules. The energy stored in the bonds to hold these molecules together is released when an organism breaks down food. Cells then use this energy to perform work, such as movement. The energy that is harnessed from photosynthesis enters the ecosystems of our planet continuously and is transferred from one organism to another. Therefore, directly or indirectly, the process of photosynthesis provides most of the energy required by living things on Earth. Photosynthesis also results in the release of oxygen into the atmosphere. In short, to eat and breathe humans depend almost entirely on the organisms that carry out photosynthesis.
Solar Dependence and Food Production
Some organisms can carry out photosynthesis, whereas others cannot. An autotroph is an organism that can produce its own food. The Greek roots of the word autotroph mean “self” (auto) “feeder” (troph). Plants are the best-known autotrophs, but others exist, including certain types of bacteria and algae (Figure 1). Oceanic algae contribute enormous quantities of food and oxygen to global food chains. More specifically, plants are photoautotrophs, a type of autotroph that uses sunlight and carbon from carbon dioxide to synthesize chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates. All organisms carrying out photosynthesis require sunlight. Far less common, chemosynthetic autotrophs (chemoautotrophs) use inorganic molecules as an energy source. They are the found near deep sea vents, for example.
Heterotrophs are organisms incapable of photosynthesis that must therefore obtain energy and carbon from food by consuming other organisms. The Greek roots of the word heterotroph mean “other” (hetero) “feeder” (troph), meaning that their food comes from other organisms. Even if the organism being consumed is another animal, it traces its stored energy back to autotrophs and the process of photosynthesis. Humans are heterotrophs, as are all animals and fungi. Heterotrophs depend on autotrophs, either directly or indirectly. For example, a deer obtains energy by eating plants. A wolf eating a deer obtains energy that originally came from the plants eaten by that deer (Figure 2). Using this reasoning, all food eaten by humans can be traced back to autotrophs that carry out photosynthesis.
Summary of Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis requires sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water as starting reactants (Figure 3). After the process is complete, photosynthesis releases oxygen and produces carbohydrate molecules, most commonly glucose. These sugar molecules contain the energy that living things need to survive. The complex reactions of photosynthesis can be summarized by the chemical equation shown in Figure 4 below.
Although the equation looks simple, the many steps that take place during photosynthesis are actually quite complex. In plants, photosynthesis takes place primarily in the chloroplasts of leaves. Chloroplasts have a double (inner and outer) membrane. Within the chloroplast is a third membrane that forms stacked, disc-shaped structures called thylakoids. Embedded in the thylakoid membrane are molecules of chlorophyll, a pigment (a molecule that absorbs light) through which the entire process of photosynthesis begins.
The Two Parts of Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis takes place in two stages: the light-dependent reactions and the Calvin cycle. In the light-dependent reactions chlorophyll absorbs energy from sunlight and then converts it into chemical energy with the aid of water. The light-dependent reactions release oxygen as a byproduct from the splitting of water. In the Calvin cycle, the chemical energy derived from the light-dependent reactions drives both the capture of carbon in carbon dioxide molecules and the subsequent assembly of sugar molecules.
The Global Significance of Photosynthesis
The process of photosynthesis is crucially important to the biosphere for the following reasons:
- It creates O2, which is important for two reasons. The molecular oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere was created by photosynthetic organisms; without photosynthesis there would be no O2 to support cellular respiration (see chapter 3.2) needed by complex, multicellular life. Photosynthetic bacteria were likely the first organisms to perform photosynthesis, dating back 2-3 billion years ago. Thanks to their activity, and a diversity of present-day photosynthesizing organisms, Earth’s atmosphere is currently about 21% O2. Also, this O2 is vital for the creation of the ozone layer (see chapter 10.2), which protects life from harmful ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. Ozone (O3) is created from the breakdown and reassembly of O2.
- It provides energy for nearly all ecosystems. By transforming light energy into chemical energy, photosynthesis provides the energy used by organisms, whether those organisms are plants, grasshoppers, wolves, or fungi. The only exceptions are found in very rare and isolated ecosystems, such as near deep sea hydrothermal vents where organisms get energy that originally came from minerals, not the sun.
- It provides the carbon needed for organic molecules. Organisms are primarily made of two things: water and organic molecules, the latter being carbon based. Through the process of carbon fixation, photosynthesis takes carbon from CO2 and converts it into sugars (which are organic). Carbon in these sugars can be re-purposed to create the other types of organic molecules that organisms need, such as lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. For example, the carbon used to make your DNA was once CO2 used by photosynthetic organisms (see section 3.1 for more information on food webs).
Food Chains and Food Webs
A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass as one organism eats another. The levels in the food chain are producers, primary consumers, higher-level consumers, and finally decomposers. These levels are used to describe ecosystem structure and dynamics. There is a single path through a food chain. Each organism in a food chain occupies a specific trophic level (energy level), its position in the food chain or food web.
An ecosystem is a community of organisms and their abiotic (non-living) environment. In almost every ecosystems, the base, or foundation, of the food chain consists of photosynthetic organisms (plants or phytoplankton), which are called producers. These are generally the photoautotrophs, such as plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria. The rate at which photosynthetic producers incorporate energy from the Sun is called gross primary productivity. However, not all of the energy incorporated by producers is available to the other organisms in the food web because producers must also grow and reproduce, which consumes energy. Net primary productivity is the energy that remains in the producers after accounting for these organisms’ metabolism and heat loss. The net productivity is then available to the primary consumers at the next trophic level.
Chemoautotrophs are primarily bacteria and archaea that are found in rare ecosystems where sunlight is not available, such as those associated with dark caves or hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean (Figure 5). Many chemoautotrophs in hydrothermal vents use hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which is released from the vents, as a source of chemical energy. This allows them to live and grow, and in turn supply energy to the rest of the ecosystem.
Producers (autotrophs) are eaten by consumers, moving the energy they produced up the food chain. The organisms that consume the producers are herbivores called primary consumers. Secondary consumers are usually carnivores that eat the primary consumers. Tertiary consumers are carnivores that eat other carnivores. Higher-level consumers feed on the next lower trophic levels, and so on, up to the organisms at the top of the food chain. In the Lake Ontario food chain, shown in Figure 6, the Chinook salmon is the apex consumer at the top of this food chain.
One major factor that limits the number of steps in a food chain is energy. Energy is lost at each trophic level, used by the animals as the live their lives, move, and grow. It is also lost between trophic levels as heat, and in the transfer to decomposers (Figure 7 below). Thus, after a limited number of trophic energy transfers, the amount of energy remaining in the food chain may not be great enough to support viable populations at higher trophic levels.
In other words, there are usually a lot fewer lions (tertiary consumers) than zebras (primary consumers). And there are usually only one or two species of tertiary consumer in any given ecosystem, but there might be dozens of primary consumers.
This is one problem with using food chains to describe most ecosystems. Another is that even when all organisms are grouped into appropriate trophic levels, some of these organisms can feed at more than one trophic level. In addition, species feed on and are eaten by more than one species in each level. In other words, the linear model of ecosystems, the food chain, is a hypothetical and overly simplistic representation of ecosystem structure. A holistic model—which includes all the interactions between different species and their complex interconnected relationships with each other and with the environment—is a more accurate and descriptive model for ecosystems. A food web is a concept that accounts for the multiple trophic (feeding) interactions between each species (Figure 8 below). It’s a more system-thinking way of thinking about the system!
Two general types of food webs are often shown interacting within a single ecosystem. A grazing food web has plants or other photosynthetic organisms at its base, followed by herbivores and various carnivores. A detrital food web consists of a base of organisms that feed on decaying organic matter (dead organisms), including decomposers (which break down dead and decaying organisms) and detritivores (which consume organic detritus). These organisms are usually bacteria, fungi, and invertebrate animals that recycle organic material back into the biotic part of the ecosystem as they themselves are consumed by other organisms.
Matter in the Food Web
Because we’re talking about food webs, let’s go back to matter flow for one important idea. One of the most important consequences of ecosystem dynamics in terms of human impact is biomagnification. Biomagnification is the increasing concentration of persistent, toxic substances in organisms at each successive trophic level. These are substances that are lipid soluble and are stored in the fat reserves of each organism. Many substances have been shown to biomagnify, including classical studies with the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), which were described in the 1960s bestseller Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. DDT was a commonly used pesticide before its dangers to apex consumers, such as the bald eagle, became known. DDT and other toxins are taken in by producers and passed on to successive levels of consumers at increasingly higher rates. As bald eagles feed on contaminated fish, their DDT levels rise. It was discovered that DDT caused the eggshells of birds to become fragile, which contributed to the bald eagle being listed as an endangered species under U.S. law. The use of DDT was banned in the United States in the 1970s.
Another substances that biomagnifies is polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), which was used as coolant liquids in the United States until its use was banned in 1979. PCB was best studied in aquatic ecosystems where predatory fish species accumulated very high concentrations of the toxin that is otherwise exists at low concentrations in the environment. As illustrated in a study performed by the NOAA in the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron of the North American Great Lakes (Figure 9 below), PCB concentrations increased from the producers of the ecosystem (phytoplankton) through the different trophic levels of fish species. The apex consumer, the walleye, has more than four times the amount of PCBs compared to phytoplankton. Also, research found that birds that eat these fish may have PCB levels that are at least ten times higher than those found in the lake fish.
Other concerns have been raised by the biomagnification of heavy metals, such as mercury and cadmium, in certain types of seafood. The United States Environmental Protection Agency recommends that pregnant women and young children should not consume any swordfish, shark, king mackerel, or tilefish because of their high mercury content. These individuals are advised to eat fish low in mercury: salmon, shrimp, pollock, and catfish. Biomagnification is a good example of how ecosystem dynamics can affect our everyday lives, even influencing the food we eat.
Suggested Supplementary Reading
Canales, M. et al. 2018. 6 Things that Make Life on Earth Possible [Infographic]. National Geographic. March.
Attribution
Essentials of Environmental Science by Kamala Doršner is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Energy Flow through Ecosystems by OpenStax is licensed under CC BY 3.0. Modified from the original by A. Geddes, Matthew R. Fisher.