Our Environment

Significance of Food Chains

The study of food chains helps in understanding some of the important aspects of the ecosystem in particular and environment in general.

• The food relationship among the different organisms in an ecosystem
• The food chains are the living components of the biosphere
• These are the vehicles of transfer of energy from one level to another
• Through the food chains, transfer of materials and nutrients also takes place
• The movement of some toxic substances (like DDT) in the ecosystem, sprayed to kill the pests and insects, through the various trophic levels, their accumulation at the highest trophic level, etc. can be studied. How much this affects man can also be known because being an omnivore, man eats food of very type and in the process receives these poisons at every trophic level. The phenomenon of passing the toxic substances through different levels is termed as biological magnification.

These functions make the biosphere dynamic.

Significance of Ecosystems

From the above, it must be clear that in an ecosystem, energy movement and movement of nutrients occur continuously.

Energy Flow

Energy from the sun is captured by the green plants and passed on through the various trophic levels. The flow of energy is unidirectional i.e., non-cyclic. However, some energy is lost at every state in the atmosphere.

Nutrient Movement

The nutrient movement goes on side by side along with unidirectional flow of energy. The nutrient movement is a cyclic movement where the nutrients revolve round with an ecosystem, hence cyclic. This cyclic movement of nutrients is also called as biogeochemical cycle.