Ecosystem

     Structure of an Ecosystem

The structure of an ecosystem explains the relationship between the abiotic (nonliving) and the biotic (living) components. 

1. Biotic Structure 

a) The plants, animals and microorganisms present in an ecosystem from the biotic component. 

b) These organisms have different nutritional behaviour and status in the ecosystems and are accordingly known as Producers or Consumers, based on how they get their food. 

2. A biotic structure 

a) The physical and chemical components of an ecosystem constitute its abiotic structure. 

b) It includes climatic factors, edaphic (soil) factors, geographical factors, energy, nutrients and toxic substances 

Producers: 

a) Producers are mainly the green plants, which can synthesize their food themselves by making use of carbon dioxide present in the air and water in the presence of sunlight by involving chlorophyll, the green pigment present in the leaves, through the process of photosynthesis. These are also known as photo autotrophs (auto=self; troph=food, photo=light). 

 There are some microorganisms also which can produce organic matter to some extent through oxidation of certain chemicals in the absence of sunlight. b) These are known as chemosynthetic organisms or chemo-autotophs. 

Consumers: 

All organisms which get their organic food by feeding upon other organisms are called consumers. Consumers are further classified as

Herbivores: They feed directly on producers and hence also known as primary consumers. e.g. rabbit, insect, man. 

Carnivores: They feed on other consumers. If they feed on herbivores they are called secondary consumers (e.g. frog) and if they feed on the carnivores (snake, big fish etc.) they are known as tertiary carnivores/consumers. 

Omnivores: They feed on both plants and animals. Eg: human, rat, fox, many birds. 

Detritivores : They feed on the parts of dead organisms, wastes of living organisms, their castoffs and partially decomposed matter e.g. beetles, termites, ants, crabs, earthworms etc.