June 22, 2015
Monday 60 min
12:30 - 01:30
Chapter 55 Ecosystems
As a change in pace, we used some additional materials to explore the basis of ecosystem ecology. Starting with a review of population and community ecology, we continued to explore the energy budget of the earth. We watched a NASA video describing missions that have taken place in the past few years, designed in exploration of this energy budget. Solar radiation interacts with aerisols and greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. We discussed the energy flow and various chemical cycling/recycling processes that allow for the biosphere including the carbon cycle, the water cycle, and the nitrogen cycle. We also investigated the other spheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, geosphere etc.) of investigation when studying ecosystems.