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Fundamentals of Environmental Science

• The French word "Environ," meaning "surrounding," refers to the environment
• The environment creates conditions for living organisms to exist and develop
• Environmental science is interdisciplinary, integrating physical, chemical, and biological sciences to investigate environmental issues and potential solutions
• Natural resource overexploitation can be mitigated by environmental education, which promotes resource management and conservation practices

International Environmental Issues

• Most environmental problems have importance beyond local or regional boundaries
• Industrialization and development can lead to air, water and soil pollution plus habitat destruction
• The world population was 7.7 billion in December of 2018
• Conservation and management techniques are aided by environmental education

Ecology and Biodiversity

• Ecology plus Biodiversity investigates the mechanisms the mechanisms that regulate biodiversity and allow for the maintenance of our changing world's ecosystem functioning
• Ecology plus Biodiversity yields insight on nature, and the bonds between species, their environment and climate
• Environmental pollution is a significant problem, especially in developing nations mega cities and urbanized municipalities
• Environmental awareness can be propagated through adult education, Environment Education Awareness and Training (EEAT) for students, and mass media

World Environment Day

• Celebrated on June 5th annually to raise global awareness for environmental protection
• The United Nations held its Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, resulting in the first attempt by a global community to deliberate on environmental protection
• World Water Day is March 22, Earth Day is April 22, World Population Day is July 11, and World Biodiversity Day is May 22

Nobel Peace Prize Winners

• The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won in 2017 for anti-nuclear weapons campaigning
• Kailash Sathyarthi (India) and Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan) won in 2014 for promoting children's education plus their struggle against suppression
• The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) won in 2013 for extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons
• Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won in 2007 for efforts that resulted in knowledge dissemination about human induced climate change

Ecology and Ecosystems

• Ecology studies how organisms interact with their habitat and one another, the biotic and abiotic components
• An ecosystem includes interacting biotic groups and a non-living environment where matter and energy are exchanged
• An Ecosystem includes plants and animals in relation to each other and its surroundings

Ecological Terms

• The Biosphere consists of the portion of Earth that sustains life, such as the top segment of Earth's crust, the atmosphere, and all water
• Biotic factors are living components
• Abiotic factors are non-living components
• A Habitat is where an organism dwells and where the needs for survival like food, temperature and shelter exist
• A Niche describes how an organism survives in an ecosystem, obtains sustenance, shelter, plus avoids danger
• A limiting factor can restrict a population's size due to living or non-living components like predators or drought
• Carrying capacity is the maximum population that an ecosystem can sustain over time
• An Organism is one individual
• A Population is a group from the same living species
• A Community is all the populations from different species sharing one ecosystem
• A Biome constitutes locations with related climates plus ecosystems

Types of Ecosystems

• Natural ecosystems operate and maintain themselves naturally.
• A Terrestrial ecosystem is relevant to soil and vegetation, for example forests, grasslands plus deserts
• An Aquatic ecosystem relates to bodies of water, for example a lake, stream or ocean
• Fresh water ecosystems include flowing (rivers and streams) and standing (ponds and lakes) water
• Marine ecosystems include oceans, seas and estuaries
• Artificial ecosystems are upheld by man and manipulated for human intentions, for example artificial lakes plus reservoirs, cities and croplands

Ecosystem Structures

• Abiotic factors are the non-living physical and chemical components of an ecosystem
• Climatic factors include temperature, solar radiation, wind and rainfall
• Physical factors include light, fire and geomagnetism
• Biotic components include plants, animals and microorganisms
• Producers mainly include green plants, which make food through photosynthesis, also known as photoautotrophs
• Chemosynthetic organisms or chemo-autotrophs are bacteria, they produce food via chemical oxidation absent from sunlight
• Consumers or heterotrophs can't produce food directly from sunlight and comprise organisms, known as primary, secondary, tertiary
• Herbivores consume plants, for example rabbits and deer
• Carnivores eat other herbivores, and are sometimes called tertiary consumers, for example eagles and snakes
• Omnivores consume both plants and animals, for example humans, rats, foxes and birds
• Detritivores or saprotrophs eat organisms that are either plant or animal, for example worms and termites
• Decomposers get nutrition through decaying dead plants and animals, for example fungus and bacteria

Ecosystem Functions

• Major functions include food chains and food webs, energy flow, nutrient cycling, plus soil formation
• A food chain transfers energy via a sequence of eating and being eaten
• Energy flows in any food chain occur from producers to herbivores to carnivores
• 80 to 90% of energy is lost as heat at each transfer between one level and another
• Shorter food chains yield more valuable energy
• If steps in the middle from a food chain get removed, the entire food chain gets affected

Food Chain Classification

• Grazing: green plants become consumed by grazing creatures next by carnivores, in grasslands
• Detritus: begins with organic matter that is broken down into nutrients with fungi
• Parasitic: parasite food production chain has producer or consumer getting parasites that obtain food from it
• Food webs show how organisms rely on extra sources of consumption, creating interconnection as nature's "web of life"

Food Chain and Significance

• Food chains/webs show relations and interaction with the feeding habits inside all ecosystems
• In the world of ecosystems mechanisms exist that circulate matter plus the flow of energy
• These trace the movement on toxic material and bio-magnification issues within ecosystems

Ecological Pyramids

• Functions plus trophic levels inside ecosystems are graphically represented in the form of pyramids.
• Ecosystem structures displaying biomass, energy, and the number of organisms experiences gradual reduction moving to each level, culminating at the apex
• Producers remain at the foundation of major ecological pyramids to proceed through various trophic stages

Types of Ecological Pyramids

• Pyramid of numbers: shows all organisms as individuals at each tropic stage.
• Pyramid of energy: displays rate on energy flow and output from each trophic location plus level of increasing productivity
• Pyramid of biomass: depicts how much overall biomass exists at each trophic point in each chain of food

Pyramid of Numbers

• Pyramids of numbers show the connection between producers, carnivores, and herbivores throughout successions of trophic stages based on corresponding numbers.
• In aquatic ecosystems organisms become lesser and lesser higher up, while upright pyramids indicate the opposite tendency
• Inverted: numbers are higher on top

Pyramid of Energy

• Displays the energy volume used in successive tropic levels.
• displays energy movement through all ecosystems
• pyramids exist always as upright

Pyrmaid of Biomass

• Represents total living matter with the amount expressed using diagrams at differing levels.
• measured in grams per meter2 using tropical degrees from base to apex
• upright indicates the combined weight with produce being higher compared with consumers

Energy Flow Analysis

• Sunlight is used to measure almost all of the systems, A section from the atmosphere gets taken and some reflected back
• Plants with green coloration absorb almost 10% for transforming to usable form and transmits through other sets of organisms utilizing food energy
• 90% regarding this remains transferred in every tropic levels

Energy Flow Features

• energy proceeds from source level towards the consumer and not reversibly
• every tropic level encounters a descending degree from energy 90%
• energy level gets captured