Cycles
The Carbon Cycle
Carbon is found in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. Producers use this carbon dioxide to make sugars. Some of the carbon is used in cellular respiration, some of it goes into the soil, and the rest of the carbon is stored in the plant. The consumers eat the plants and preform cellular respiration allowing some of the carbon to go back into the atmosphere while the rest of it is stored in the animal’s body. If the animal dies then decomposers break down the compounds in the organism and the carbon travels back into the atmosphere starting the cycle over again
The Nitrogen Cycle
Nitrogen is found in the atmosphere in large quantities. However, in order for plants to use this nitrogen it must be converted into organic matter, which is normally done with the help of various types of bacteria. Once the organic nitrogen is in the soil it can be picked up by plants, which then are eaten by animals. These animals defecate and die allowing some bacteria to once again recycle the nitrogen back into the soil. Other bacteria use the nitrogen from the animals and recycle it back into inorganic nitrogen, so a build up of organic nitrogen in the soil doesn’t occur.
Food Web/Energy Flow
All energy comes from the sun. The sun's energy is used in plants like the red oat grasses, the acacia tree, and the star grasses for photosynthesis. Primary consumers such as the grasshopper, topi, warthog, and hare then consume these plants. These plants provide the energy they need to survive. The secondary consumers like the pangolin, aardvark, and mongoose then prey upon the primary consumers. Once they consume a primary consumer they have the energy they need to survive. The Tertiary consumers are at the top of the food chain. Tertiary consumers include the wild dog, the hyena, the lion, the caracal, the serval, and the tawny eagle. These animals can eat both the primary consumers, such as the tawny eagle who preys on the hare, or the secondary consumers, such as the hyena who preys on the aardvark. Once these animals die their nutrients are returned to the soil to help provide the nutrients plants need for photosynthesis once they get their energy from the sun. Each species is a critical part of the food web and removing one could cause the ecosystem to collapse. For example if the tertiary producers went extinct then the primary and secondary consumer populations would become much too high. There would not be enough producers to feed the growing population and the balance in the ecosystem would be thrown off leaving many species to starve. If the For example, if the Serval suddenly became extinct then termite populations would increase by a lot. The termites would wind up eating all the red oat grass causing other species that feed off of the red oat grass to starve. If one took away the producers in an ecosystem then food would not be provided to the primary consumer causing them to die of starvation. This would cause a chain reaction of extinctions throughout the consumer levels. Without the red oat grass the many animals in the savanna would starve including the mice. This means that the secondary consumers that rely on these animals for food such as the tawny eagle would also go extinct. If a primary consumer went extinct then the producer population would soon get much too high and plants would over grow. The secondary and tertiary consumers would both be left without any food and soon die from starvation. If the warthog went extinct for example, it would cause the star grass to over populate and the wild dogs and lions to go hungry.