PPISMP TESL
INSTITUT PERGURUAN KENT, TUARAN
ENVIRONMENT
BY:
ALICIA SU YUN SHAN
KRISTIE JACQUELINE LAU
MIKO LAU WEE NA
SHARON WONG MIN YING
Overview
• Ecosystems are made up of abiotic and biotic components.
• Energy is continually input into an ecosystem in the form of
light energy, and some energy is lost with each transfer to a
higher trophic level. Nutrients, on the other hand, are
recycled within an ecosystem. So, "energy flows, elements
cycle".
• Energy is moved through an ecosystem via a food web, which
is made up of interlocking food chains. Energy is first captured
by photosynthesis (primary production). The amount of
primary production determines the amount of energy
available to higher trophic levels.
• The study of how chemical elements cycle through an
ecosystem is termed biogeochemistry.
• Ecosystem function is controlled mainly by two processes,
"top-down" and "bottom-up" controls.
• A biome is a major vegetation type extending over a large
area. Biome distributions are determined largely by
temperature and precipitation patterns on the Earth's surface.
KEY CONCEPTS
AND DEFINITION
OF
ENVIRONMENT
Biotic components
• The biotic components of a ecosystem are the
living organisms that exist in the system.
These organisms can be classified as
producers, consumers or decomposers.
• Producers are able to capture the sun’s energy
through photosynthesis and absorb nutrients
from the soil, storing them for future use by
themselves and by other organisms.
• Grasses, shrubs, trees, mosses, lichens, and
cyanobacteria are some of the many
producers found.
• Consumers are organisms that consume plant
and/or animal material to gain their energy for
growth and activity.
• Consumers are further divided into three types :
Herbivores eat only plants.
Omnivores eat both plants and animals.
Carnivores eat only animals.
• Decomposers include the insects, fungi, algae
and bacteria both on the ground and in the soil
that help to break down the organic layer to
provide nutrients for growing plants.
http://www.bcgrasslands.org/grasslands/bioticcomponents.htm
ABIOTIC COMPONENTS
•_____( 2009). Abiotic Components.
Retrieved
March 23, 2010,
fromhttp://www.bcb.uwc.ac.za/Sci_
Ed/grade10/ecology/abiotic/abiot.ht
m
ABIOTIC components
• Non-living chemical or physical factors
in the environment.
• Solar energy provides practically all the
energy for ecosystems.
• Inorganic substances, e.g., sulfur, boron,
tend to cycle through ecosystems.
• Organic compounds, such as proteins,
carbohydrates, lipids, and other complex
molecules, form a link between biotic
and abiotic components of the system.
• Light
 Quality of light(wavelength or
colour)
 Light intensity( strength of the light)
 Day length(length of the light period)
• Climate
- Includes the rainfall, temperature
and wind patterns that occurs in an
area.
•



Water
Water requirements of plants
Water requirements of animals
The water cycle in nature
• Topography
- Is the variety of shapes found on the
landscape determined by slopes, elevation
and aspects.
•






Soil
Soil
Soil
Soil
Soil
Soil
pH
texture
air
temperature
water
solution
• Natural disturbance
-change of grasslands in many ways, adding to
the diversity of these ecosystem.
- flooding(broken trees, move soil); lighting
storms (kill small trees).
BIODIVERSITY
• Definition- the variety of all forms of life, from
genes to species, through the broad scale of
ecosystem.
• Ecosystem- the interaction between living
things and non-living things.
• Genetic diversity
• Species diversity
Five Kingdom System
Human
Lions
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
(subphylum)
Vertebrata
Class
Mamalia
Order
Bimata
Carnivora
Family
Hominidee
Felidae
Genus
Home
Panthera
Species
Sapiens
Panthera
pardus
Types of Ecosystem in Malaysia
1. Lowland forest-up to 300 metres, meranti, keruing,
proboscis, rafflesia, orang utan, wild orchids,
rhodondenrong.
2. Montane forest-(800-1700 metres)- wild orcgid,
magnolia,fern, mosses
3. Mangrove forest- nipah, mangrove, saltwater
crocodile, fish, shrimp.
4. Peat swamp forest- shark, catfish, bettas, loaches,
tapah, arowana.
5. Sulu-sulawesi seas- parrot fish, barrocuda, turtle,
dolphin, manta rays, coral reef
Factors contributing to decline
1. Habitat destruction
-development of agriculture, housing, logging,
industry.
2. Overexploitation
-fish bombing, commercial hunting
3. Introduction of new species
-foreign plants or animals are being transferred.
4. Pollution
-acid rain, run off from agricultural land, ozone
depletion
Nutrient cycle
• Nutrient cycle is studied in terms of specific
nutrients, with each nutrient in an
environment having its own particular pattern
of cycling.
• Among the most important nutrient cycles are
the carbon nutrient cycle and the nitrogen
cycle.
ENERGY FLOW IN ECOSYSTEMS
• All organisms require energy for
growth, maintenance, reproduction, and
locomotion.
• Hence, for all organisms there must be
a source of energy and a loss of usable
energy.
Types of energy
• heat energy
• mechanical energy (+gravitational energy,
etc.)
• chemical energy = energy stored in
molecular bonds
Energy flow
• Simplistically:
Producers
heat
Consumers
Decomposers
heat
• This pattern of energy flow among different organisms is
the TROPHIC STRUCTURE of an ecosystem.
Hydrological cycle
• The cycle where water circulates from the land to the sky
and back again.
• The stages of the cycle are:
 Evaporation- Water is transferred from the surface to the
atmosphere.
 Transport-The movement of water through the
atmosphere, specifically from over the oceans to over
land.
 Condensation-The transported water vapour eventually
condenses, forming tiny droplets in clouds.
 Precipitation-The primary mechanism for transporting water
from the atmosphere to the surface of the earth.
 Groundwater -Some of the underground water is trapped
between rock or clay layers.
 Run-off-Most of the water which returns to land flows downhill.
Food chain
• A food chain shows how each living thing gets its food.
• It also shows the transfer of energy from one trophic
level to another.
• For example, a simple food chain links the trees & shrubs,
the giraffes (that eat trees & shrubs), and the lions (that
eat the giraffes).
• Each link in this chain is food for the next link. A food
chain always starts with plant life and ends with an
animal.
• Combinations of food chains will create a food web. Food
web consists of all the food chains in a community linked.
Terminology of trophic levels
• Producers -capture energy, produce complex
organic compounds
• Primary consumers--feed on producers
• Secondary consumers--feed on primary
consumers
• Tertiary consumers--feed on secondary
consumers
• Plants are called producers because they are able to
use light energy from the Sun to produce food
(sugar) from carbon dioxide and water.
• Animals cannot make their own food so they must
eat plants and/or other animals. They are called
consumers. There are three groups of consumers.
• Animals that eat ONLY PLANTS are called herbivores
(or primary consumers).
• Animals that eat OTHER ANIMALS are called carnivores.
 carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary
consumers
 carnivores that eat other carnivores are called tertiary
consumers
e.g., killer whales in an ocean food web ... phytoplankton
→ small fishes → seals → killer whales
• Animals and people who eat BOTH animals and plants are
called omnivores.
• Then there are decomposers (bacteria and fungi) which feed
on decaying matter.
Interrelationship
ENVIRONMENT
Issues happen
in ecology system
La Nina
Phenomenon
La Nina
• The phenomenon has to do with the sea
surface temperatures in the eastern and
central area of the tropical Pacific Ocean.
• The La Nina is usually described as a
cooler than average sea surface
temperature in this area of the Pacific.
La nina
• It is generally caused by a cooler than average
sea surface in the tropical area of the Pacific.
• This causes the cold water to move up to the
surface of the waters when the atmosphere is
moving in a generally eastward direction, as
well as the oceanic waves which are also
moving east.
• La Nina, in general, tends to produce drier
weather conditions than normal across the
central plains during the fall season, a drier
southeast during the winter months.
• The El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the
coupled ocean-atmosphere process that
includes both El Nino and La Nina.
El Nino
or
Southern
Oscillation
El Nino or Southern
Oscillation
• an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters
in the eastern tropical Pacific.
• South American fisherman have given this
phenomenon the name El Nino, which is
Spanish for "The Christ Child," because it
comes about the time of the celebration of
the birth of the Christ Child-Christmas.
How the Phenomena of the La Nina
and the El Nino occur
• They occur as a result of some kind of
interaction that occurs between the
atmosphere in the tropic Pacific and the
surface of the ocean waters.
• When this ocean system becomes warm, we
call it El Nino.
• When the ocean system becomes cold, it is
usually referred to as the La Nina
phenomenon..
NORMAL
CONDITION
Normal
condition
• Strong trade winds blow from the east along the
equator, pushing warm water into the Pacific
Ocean. The thermocline layer of water is the area
of transition between the warmer surface waters
and the colder water of the bottom.
• Because the surface water is push westward
toward Indonesia, the sea level is roughly half a
meter higher in the western Pacific than in the
east. Thus you have warmer, deeper waters in
the western Pacific and cooler, shallower waters
in the east near the coast of South America.
• TOPEX/POSEIDON global topography maps are
used to study ocean surface circulation. Here the
highest sea elevation (shown in red) is in the
western Pacific Ocean.
• In the east the water cools the air above it, and
the air becomes too dense to rise to produce
clouds and rain. However; in the western Pacific
the air is heated by the water below it, increasing
the buoyancy of the lower atmosphere thus
increasing the likelihood of rain. This is why heavy
rain storms are typical near Indonesia while Peru
is relatively dry.
EL NINO
CONDITION
El Nino
condition
• happens when weakening trade winds allow the warmer
water from the western Pacific to flow toward the east. This
flattens out the sea level, builds up warm surface water off
the coast of South America, and increases the temperature of
the water in the eastern Pacific.
• The deeper, warmer water in the east limits the amount of
nutrient-rich deep water normally surfaced by the upwelling
process. More importantly, the different water temperatures
tend to change the weather of the region.
• What happens to the ocean also affects the atmosphere.
Tropical thunderstorms are fueled by hot, humid air over the
oceans. The hotter the air, the stronger and bigger the
thunderstorms. As the Pacific's warmest water spreads
eastward, the biggest thunderstorms move with it.
• Off the east coast of southern Africa, drought conditions often
occur. In countries such as Zimbabwe, the effects of drought
can be devastating.
• The clouds and rainstorms associated with warm ocean
waters also shift toward the east. Thus, rains which normally
would fall over the tropical rain forests of Indonesia start
falling over the deserts of Peru, causing forest fires and
drought in the western Pacific and flooding in South America.
• higher temperatures in western Canada and the upper plains
of the United States, colder temperatures in the southern
United States. The east coast of southern Africa often
experiences drought during El Nino.
DEFORESTATION
Deforestation
• permanent destruction of indigenous forests
and woodlands.
• Trees cannot be grow again and replanted at
the rate at which they are being cut down.
• Deforestation leads to higher Carbon Dioxide
levels in the air.
Effects of deforestation
• It contributes to the greenhouse effects. The
trees are large carbon dioxide stores, and when
the trees are burnt they release this gas. This
leads to an increase in the carbon dioxide levels
in the air.
• Trees draw water up through their roots and
release it into the atmosphere (transpiration). If
the trees are removed, the region cannot hold as
much water and will become drier.
• If there are no trees, the land becomes far more
unstable than before. The roots from the trees no
longer exist and therefore it leaves the forest
floor open to erosion and mudslides.
• The land also becomes sandy and dry as the sun
can now penetrate deep into the forest, where
before, the tree-cover blocked out the
damaging rays. When this occurs plants living
near the cut down tree die and wither in the
sun.
• The local animals are effected just as much as
the people. Their natural habitats are destroyed
and species become extinct.
• Native people living in forest areas are pushed
out of their homes and have to encroach on
more of the forest. They cannot go anywhere
else because they only know how to survive on
the plants in the forest.
ARTICLE ON
CLIMATE
CHANGE
THE END