Change Makers podcast

The podcast discusses the role of energy in ecosystems. Ecosystems are geographic areas where plants, animals, and other organisms, along with weather and landscape, work together to sustain life. Most ecosystems get their energy from the sun, which produces heat and radiation through the fission of hydrogen atoms. This energy is absorbed by plants through photosynthesis, and they convert it into their own energy. The energy then transfers to primary consumers, such as herbivores and omnivores. However, there are also ecosystems, like those near hydrothermal vents, that rely on chemosynthesis instead of the sun for energy. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Changemakers podcast. This is Dallas Christensen, and I'd love to welcome you to our environmental podcast on today's episode, Energy in Ecosystems. Now quickly, a word from our sponsor, plants. Plants are what give us energy, ultimately, but we'll go into detail about that. Shout out to plants. What is an ecosystem? That's what we're going to be talking about today. Now, according to the National Geographic, an ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life. We all live in an ecosystem. An important feature to know about ecosystems is that they all require constant or consistent energy to be introduced for it to function. Most ecosystems receive almost all their energy from the sun, but how exactly does the sun give us energy? The answer to this question can be broken down into a couple of parts, let's say two. The energy that we receive from the sun first comes from a form of heat and radiation, specifically solar. Why and how the sun actually produces heat and radiation is through the fission of hydrogen atoms. These hydrogen atoms are split. When this process is done, it produces massive amounts of energy. Sun, ultimately, is a massive hydrogen ball of flame. According to Arizona State University, the sun will remain in action, consistently providing the fission process for about five billion years. Now, for those who might be a little scared, we should be okay. We have plenty of time. Now that we know a little bit about the sun and how it produces the energy we need on Earth, let's discuss how we actually use that energy. We discussed the sun provides two essential elements to allow us to live, first being heat and second being radiation. The heat is needed for obvious reasons, so organisms can properly function. Without the sun's heat, we'd be as cold as space here, but we still haven't found other living organisms. Heat is ultimately good. The less obvious reason that the sun gives us energy in life is in our ecosystems through the solar radiation it produces. This life-sustaining energy is absorbed by plants and other primary producers, a primary producer being an organism that can produce its own food or energy without the conception of other organisms. They do this through the process of photosynthesis. In the science novel, Environmental Science, A Global Concern, photosynthesis is described as a process that converts radiant energy into high-quality chemical energy and the bonds that hold together organic molecules. I also found it interesting coming across this book as it mentioned that only one to two percent of the sunlight falling on plants is captured by photosynthesis and that the other half of the energy plants absorb is used in evaporating water. Ultimately, without the sun, plants wouldn't get the energy they need and we wouldn't have the energy that's provided to us. The plants convert the solar radiation energy using the hydrogen split from the oxygen after evaporation by also using their chlorophyll to produce their own energy. This energy helps feed primary consumers, gives them energy, and so on. Primary consumers can be an herbivore, an organism that eats plants, or any omnivore, an organism that eats either plants or animals. This is how a normal ecosystem works from the sun and it's incredible. The sun gives off immense energy. Then primary producers convert the sun's energy into energy they can use themselves. Then the primary and secondary consumers can get that energy from the producers or from other consumers. There's something very interesting as well. We discussed at the beginning that near all ecosystems rely on the sun's energy for survival. The key word here is near. For a long time, it was reasonably believed that the bottom of the ocean had no other living organisms because of the lack of sun, the pressure, the immense weight pressure, and extremely cold temperatures. However, deep sea explorations provided evidence of ecosystems. Now, how could anything be living in these extreme conditions, especially without any sunlight? There's a process that helps keep these deep water critters alive called chemosynthesis. These creatures, like giant tube worms, extraordinary crabs, blind shrimp, and others, live near hydrothermal vents or systems. These are places that are created because the Earth's core spews out rich minerals and heat and also hydrogen sulfide, which allows plants and systems like these to thrive, to live as a source of energy in these niche ecosystems. Knowing that the sun isn't needed for everything, we may be able to discover other ecosystems that don't need the sun. I think on our episode of this podcast today, we learned a lot. I hope you all join me next time on the Changemakers podcast. Thank you.