The other component shown in the diagram are the inorganic nutrients.
They are inorganic because they do not contain carbon-carbon bonds. These
inorganic nutrients include the phosphorous in your teeth, bones, and cellular
membranes; the nitrogen in your amino acids (the building blocks of protein);
and the iron in your blood (to name just a few of the inorganic nutrients).
The movement of the inorgA trophic level refers to the organisms position in the food chain.
Autotrophs are at the base. Organisms that eat autotrophs are called herbivores
or
primary
consumers. An organism that eats herbivores is a
carnivore and
a secondary consumer. A carnivore which eats a carnivore which eats
a herbivore is a tertiary consumer, and so on. It is important to
note that many animals do not specialize in their diets. Omnivores
(such as humans) eat both animals and plants. Further, except for some
specialists, most carnivores don't limit their diet to organisms of only
one trophic level. Frogs, for instance, don't discriminate between herbivorous
and carnivorous bugs in their diet. If it's the right size, and moving
at the right distance, chances are the frog will eat it. It's not as if
the frog has brain cells to waste wondering if it's going to mess up the
food chain by being a secondary consumer one minute and a quaternary consumer
the next.
Energy
Flow Through the Ecosystem
The diagram above shows how both energy and inorganic nutrients flow
through the ecosystem. We need to define some terminology first. Energy
"flows" through the ecosystem in the form of carbon-carbon bonds. When
respiration occurs, the carbon-carbon bonds are broken and the carbon is
combined with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. This process releases the
energy, which is either used by the organism (to move its muscles, digest
food, excrete wastes, think, etc.) or the energy may be lost as heat. The
dark arrows represent the movement of this energy. Note that all energy
comes from the sun, and that the ultimate fate of all energy in ecosystems
is to be lost as heat. Energy does not recycle!!