12.16: Producer

Where does all the bear's energy come from?

Bears get their energy from their food. Brown bears eat a varied diet, from nuts and berries to fish and other animals. When bears eat a berry, they are obtaining energy that the plant originally captured from the sun. Even when a bear eats another animal, the energy in that animal ultimately came from eating a producer that captured the sun's energy.

Producers

Energy is the ability to do work. In organisms, this work can be physical work, like walking or jumping, or it can be the work used to carry out the chemical processes in their cells. Every biochemical reaction that occurs in an organism's cells needs energy. All organisms need a constant supply of energy to stay alive.

Some organisms can get the energy directly from the sun. Other organisms get their energy from other organisms. Through predator-prey relationships, the energy of one organism is passed on to another. Energy is constantly flowing through a community. With just a few exceptions, all life on Earth depends on the sun’s energy for survival.

The energy of the sun is first captured by producers (Figure below), organisms that can make their own food. Many producers make their own food through the process of photosynthesis. The "food" the producers make is the sugar, glucose. Producers make food for the rest of the ecosystem. As energy is not recycled, energy must consistently be captured by producers. This energy is then passed on to the organisms that eat the producers, and then to the organisms that eat those organisms, and so on.

Recall that the only required ingredients needed for photosynthesis are sunlight, carbon dioxide (CO₂), and water (H₂O). From these simple inorganic ingredients, photosynthetic organisms produce the carbohydrate glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆), and other complex organic compounds. Essentially, these producers are changing the energy from the sunlight into a usable form of energy. They are also making the oxygen that we breathe. Oxygen is a waste product of photosynthesis.

The survival of every ecosystem is dependent on the producers. Without producers capturing the energy from the sun and turning it into glucose, an ecosystem could not exist. On land, plants are the dominant producers. Phytoplankton, tiny photosynthetic organisms, are the most common producers in the oceans and lakes. Algae, which is the green layer you might see floating on a pond, are an example of phytoplankton.

There are also bacteria that use chemical processes to produce food. They get their energy from sources other than the sun, but they are still called producers. This process is known as chemosynthesis, and is common in ecosystems without sunlight, such as certain marine ecosystems.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Producers include (a) plants, (b) algae, and (c) diatoms.

Summary

• With just a few exceptions, all life on Earth depends on the sun’s energy for survival.
• Producers make food for the rest of the ecosystem through the process of photosynthesis, where the energy of the sun is used to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose.

Explore More

Use the resource below to answer the questions that follow.

• Producers and Consumers at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0a97kS_3SA (1:59)

1. Can producers function without sunlight? Why or why not?
2. What are some examples of producers? Why are they called autotrophs?
3. How do some producers use sunlight to make "food"? What other resources do they require?

Review

1. Where does all the "food" in an ecosystem ultimately come from?
2. What is the most common method of producing energy for an ecosystem? What is the energy that is made?
3. What "ingredients" are needed for the process of photosynthesis?
4. Why are producers important to an ecosystem?