biological productivity

The high level of plant production in estuaries supports a correspondingly high level of production of invertebrate animals and fish. Estuaries often contain beds of shellfish such as mussels and oysters and large populations of shrimps and crabs. Fish such as plaice and flounders

Central to all biological activity within inland aquatic ecosystems is biological productivity or aquatic production. This involves two main processes: (1) primary production, in which living organisms form energy-rich organic material (biomass) from energy-poor inorganic materials in the environment through photosynthesis, and (2)…

Primary productivity is the rate at which energy is converted by photosynthetic and chemosynthetic autotrophs to organic substances. The total amount of productivity in a region or system is gross primary productivity. A certain amount of organic material is used to sustain the…

In the highly stressful desert environment, productivity is generally very low; however, it is also highly variable from time to time and from place to place. (For a full discussion of productivity, see biosphere: Resources of the biosphere.)

Because of its importance for grazing and other grassland agricultural production, grassland productivity has been extensively investigated using various methods. However, most studies have focused only on aboveground productivity, ignoring the important subterranean component, which can be much more substantial—as much as 10…

As stressful habitats for plants, mountain lands are not very productive environments. The biomass (dry weight of organic matter in an area) of the alpine vegetation on high temperate mountains, however, may be greater than it first appears because more than 10 times…

Savannas have relatively high levels of net primary productivity compared with the actual biomass (dry mass of organic matter) of the vegetation at any one time. (For a full discussion of productivity, see biosphere: The photosynthetic process.) Most of this productivity is concentrated…

Scrublands typically grow under conditions of high environmental stress. The typical climatic environment experienced by scrublands includes long periods of hot, dry weather in which lack of moisture is a limiting factor for plant growth. Furthermore, soil nutrient levels typically are very low.…

The total aboveground biomass (dry weight of organic matter in an area) for temperate deciduous forests is typically 150 to 300 metric tons per hectare; values for temperate broad-leaved forests are generally higher, and those for sclerophyllous forests are lower. The subterranean component…

Of all vegetation types, tropical rainforests grow in climatic conditions that are least limiting to plant growth. It is to be expected that the growth and productivity (total amount of organic matter produced per unit area per unit time) of tropical rainforests would…

An important measure of natural ecosystems is the biological production of its plants and animals—that is, the total amount of biomass produced by living organisms within a given area in a specific period of time. In polar regions the greatest biological production occurs…