Autotrophs and heterotrophs are plants and animals from in different ways food. Autotrophs love organic matter and make them: using solar and chemical energy, they take carbohydrate from carbon dioxide, and then form organic matter. And heterotrophs cannot do organic chemistry, they love ready connections of animal or plant origin.
To understand a role of autotrophs and heterotrophs, it is necessary to understand that they it what is an ecosystem as there energy is distributed and why food chains are important.
Autotrophs and heterotrophs
Autotrophs are bacteria (not all) and all green plants: from monocelled seaweed and to the higher plants. The higher plants are mosses, a grass, flowers and trees. To eat it sunlight and bacteria of two types is necessary: photosynthesizing and those that use chemical energy for digestion of carbon dioxide. Such way of food is called photosynthesis.
But not all autotrophs use photosynthesis. There are organisms which eat by means of chemosynthesis: bacteria which receive carbon dioxide through chemical energy. For example, nitrifying and iron bacteria. The first oxidize ammonia to nitric acid, and the second oxidize zakisny salts of iron to oxide. There are also serobakteriya – they oxidize hydrogen sulfide to sulfuric acid.
The third type of autotrophs does organic chemistry of not organic chemistry – such organisms are called producers.
Heterotrophs – all animals, except a monocelled euglena green. The euglena green is an eukaryotic organism which does not concern neither animals, nor to mushrooms, nor to plants. And as food it miksotrof: can eat as an autotroph and as a heterotroph.
Among plants there are miksotrofa too:
- Venus flycatcher;
- raffleziya;
- rosyanka;
There are such heterotrophs which take carbon from dead organic chemistry or from live bodies of other organisms. The first are called saprofita, the second – parasites. There are saprofita mushrooms eating dead organic remains, displaying them. Treat these mushrooms mold and shlyapochny. Mold saprofita – a mukor, a penicillium or aspergill, and shlyapochny – champignon, an earth-boring dung beetle or a raincoat.
Example of mushrooms of parasites:
- tinder fungus;
- ergot;
- phytophthora;
Device of ecosystems
The ecosystem is an interaction of living organisms and environmental conditions. Examples of such ecosystems: ant hill, forest glade, farm, even cabin of the spaceship or all mother Earth.
Ecologists use the term "biogeocenosis" - it is the ecosystem option describing interrelation of microorganisms, plants, soils and animals on the uniform land area.
There is no clear boundary between ecosystems or biogeocenoses. One ecosystem can gradually pass into another, and big ecosystems consist also small. The same concerns also biogeocenoses. And the ecosystem or a biogeocenosis are less, the organisms which are their part interact more closely.
Example – an ant hill. There duties are distributed clearly: there are hunters, security guards and builders. An ant hill – a part of a forest biogeocenosis, which – a part of a landscape.
Other example – the wood. Here the ecosystem is more difficult because in the forest there live many animal species, plants, bacteria and mushrooms. Between them there is no such close connection as at ants in an ant hill, and many animals leave at all over time the wood.
Landscapes – the ecosystem is even more difficult: biogeocenoses in them are connected by the general climate, the structure of the territory and the fact that animals and plants are settled in it. Organisms are connected only by changes of gas composition of the atmosphere and the chemical composition of water here. And all ecosystems of Earth are connected by the atmosphere and the World Ocean to the biosphere.
Any ecosystem consists of living organisms, a lifeless factor (water, air) and dead organic chemistry - the detrit. And food communication of organisms regulates power of all ecosystem in general.
Energy in ecosystems
Any ecosystem lives due to energy distribution. It is difficult balance if in it there are serious violations, the ecosystem will die. And energy so is distributed:
- green plants receive it from the sun, accumulate in organic chemistry, and then spend a part for breath, and save a part in the form of biomass;
- part of biomass is eaten by herbivores, energy passes to them;
- predators eat herbivores, and too receive the share of energy.
Energy which with food was received by animals goes for processes in cages and leaves with waste products. That part of biomass of plants which was not eaten by animals dies off, and the energy which is saved up in it goes to the soil as detrit.
Detrit eat redutsenta – organisms which eat dead organic chemistry. With food they receive energy too: its part is saved in their biomass, and a part – dissipates at breath. When redutsenta die and decay, organic matter of the soil is under construction of them. In these substances the energy which they took from dead redutsent is saved, and will spend for destruction of mineral connections.
Energy is saved at the level of plants, goes through animals and redutsenta, gets to the soil and dissipates when destroys different soil connections. And the same stream of energy passes through any ecosystem.
Food chains
The food chain is a transfer of energy from its source, plants, to the soil through living organisms.
Food chains happen two types: pasturable and detritny. Pasturable begins with plants, goes to herbivores, and from them – to predators. Detritny originates from the vegetable and animal remains, passes to microorganisms, and then to animals who eat detrity, and predators who these animals eat.
Food chains on the land consist of 3-5 links:
- the sheep eats a grass, the person eats a sheep – 3 links;
- the grasshopper eats a grass, the lizard eats a grasshopper, the hawk eats a lizard – 4 links;
- the grasshopper eats a grass, a frog - a grasshopper, the snake eats a frog, the eagle eats to a dragon – 5 links.
On the land through food chains the most part of energy collected in biomass goes to detritny chains. In water ecosystems the situation is a little another: more biomass leaves on the first type of food chains, but not on the second.
Food chains form food network: each member of one food chain at the same time is a member another. And if to destroy any link of food network, then the ecosystem can seriously suffer.
Food networks have a structure which reflects number and the size of living organisms in each level food are tenacious. From one food level to another the quantity of organisms decreases, and their size increases. It is called ecological pyramid, which in basis is a lot of small organisms, and on top – not enough large.
Energy in an ecological pyramid is distributed so that on the following level only about 10% reach. Therefore the number of organisms with each level decreases, and the quantity of links of a food chain is limited.
Thus, it is clear that energy and nutrients in any ecosystem circulate, and it supports in it life. Circulation of energy and nutrients is possible because:
- Autotrophs save energy which was received from the Sun, and create organic chemistry from the consumed carbon dioxide and elements of mineral food.
- This organic chemistry and the saved-up energy – food for heterotrophs which, destroying organic matter, take for themselves energy and release batteries for autotrophs.
And they not only support each other, but also give the chance to live to an ecosystem: autotrophs create energy, and heterotrophs bring this energy there where it is most of all necessary. In it there is also their role.