Chapter 57.2, Problem 1R

Summary Introduction

To review:

The differences in the net primary production (NPP) between coral reefs and algal beds and open ocean, and the reason due to which the NPP percent contributed by the open ocean, on the Earth is higher.

Given:

The differences between different ecosystems with reference to the NPP are different. Depending upon the size of the ecosystem, the percent of the earth’s NPP contributed by each ecosystem is provided in Figure 1. The net primary productivity is independent of the size of the area covered by the ecosystem. The diagram below shows the different kinds of ecosystems:

Figure 1

Introduction:

The plants fix the energy and carbon by performing photosynthesis in which the carbon is fixed in the form of glucose. The chemosynthetic pathway is also utilized by some bacteria and nongreen algae to fix the carbon in the environment. The net carbon fixed by the two methods is called the gross primary production.

However, most of the carbon is utilized by the plants and bacteria for their own metabolic processes and respiration. After respiration, the net carbon available in plants is called NPP. The NPP percent for open ocean, coral reefs, and the algal beds differ from each other due to their relative areas.