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Carbon-based life. The Lewis structure of a carbon atom, showing its four valence electrons. Carbon is a primary component of all known life on Earth, and represents approximately 45–50% of all dry biomass. [ 1] Carbon compounds occur naturally in great abundance on Earth.
A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly define all life forms as either autotrophs or heterotrophs, based on their trophic levels, the position that they occupy in the food web.
The flow of energy in an ecosystem is an open system; the Sun constantly gives the planet energy in the form of light while it is eventually used and lost in the form of heat throughout the trophic levels of a food web. Carbon is used to make carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, the major sources of food energy. These compounds are oxidized to ...
Paralleling plants on land, phytoplankton undertake primary production in water, [2] creating organic compounds from carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. Phytoplankton form the base of — and sustain — the aquatic food web, [4] and are crucial players in the Earth's carbon cycle. [5]
Carbon compounds are defined as chemical substances containing carbon. [ 1][ 2] More compounds of carbon exist than any other chemical element except for hydrogen. Organic carbon compounds are far more numerous than inorganic carbon compounds. In general bonds of carbon with other elements are covalent bonds.
The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil. It describes a complex living system in the soil and how it interacts with the environment, plants, and animals. Food webs describe the transfer of energy between species in an ecosystem. While a food chain examines one, linear, energy pathway through ...
The carbon cycle is that part of the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of Earth. Other major biogeochemical cycles include the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle. Carbon is the main component of biological compounds as well as a major component of many ...
Photosynthesis is the main means by which plants, algae and many bacteria produce organic compounds and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water ( green arrow ). An autotroph is an organism that can convert abiotic sources of energy into energy stored in organic compounds, which can be used by other organisms. Autotrophs produce complex organic ...