Your Questions About Biomass

admin answers:

Biomass is a renewable energy source, unlike coal/gas/oil etc. So is less harmful to the environment and will not run out. As global warming and energy conservation are major international political issues at the moment, many politicians and members of the public support biomass fuels. However, the reality is that biomass use is currently infeasible and under-developed. Therefore, solar power/wind power/nuclear power are all more popular.

admin answers:

Perhaps you can isolate a certain area and measure the CO2 consumption during photosynthesis. This can be related the biomass.

admin answers:

Depending on what your bio mass is made from, for instance I use wood chips as insulation around the base of my house so the pipes under the house do not freeze. During the summer months I will grow plants in the chips and that will help keep the under part of the house cool. Re-chipping again in the fall will form insulating mass that by now is a living bio mass. Bio mass can be of most any type of biological materials and there is already much use for it as insulation. Wood fiber in the form of fine shredded paper is used as insulation in walls of houses. Hay bale houses are self insulating and are a form of bio mass. Bio mass is also an active bio mass if it is in the form of composting, which of course does produce heat, but there are other forms that produce fuel. Such as biomass methane generators that convert human and or animal waste along with some green matter that is fermented into methane gas that can be used the same as natural gas. There is also the fermenting of corn and or wood bio mass to make ethanol alcohol or methanol alcohol. Also another bio mass is in the form of waste vegetable and or animal oils/fats that can be converted into bio diesel.

admin answers:

Biomass of each species of sea bird.
You need to the individual number of each species (it that right?). Firstly, you need to briefly calculate of species number of each province (that number is relatively small). Because the area is relatively big, visual counting is not a good idea (birds are movable). The scientific way for biomass of each species count is below (if you are high school students, this way may be a little bit complex, but you still can do it ant its very fun).
1) for each species, you catch some individual bird averagely through each province and make them (e.g tie a red sting on the claw). Then, release them.
2) few days later, do the second catching, record the number
3) counting the marked birds in the second catching.
4) total individual number = the number of first catching x the number of second catching / the marked number in second catching.
You do that to all species ( or the dominant species if you want to save energy).

For the second question, you add all the biomass of each species together and then divided by nine.

admin answers:

If you mean any organsim, then its biomass should not change with increasing depth. E.g. If we plunge you into the deepest ocean trench, assuming you live, the increased pressure will squish you but will not affect your fundamental composition.

If you mean the biomass in the ecosystem, seafloor, chemoautotroph-based ecosystems will start with a bit less biomass overall as they aren’t tragically efficient and there’s not a great deal of diversity in those food webs.

Factors that affect the rate of photosynthesis and chemosynthesis are the same as those that affect all enzyme-mediated reactions; heat, temperature, substrate Kc and enzyme Kc. Photosynthesis also depends on light intensity (which is kind of like a substrate to the light-dependent reactions if you think about it). Chemosynthesis has unique limits of the limiting factors; not being nearly as sensitive to “reasonable” temperatures.

Hope that helps!

admin answers:

Talk about:
1)cost
2)availability
3)national safety
4)environmental concerns
5)conservation
i don’t know that much about biomass but it includes wood and waste, which produces about 1.3 pounds of CO2 for every kilowatt produced.
Good luck!

admin answers:

Biomass decreases are you go up on a food chain. Thats because the amount of available energy that is transferred to an organism after it consumes another decreases as you go up on a food chain. The bottom of the chain is plants and other autotrophs that make their own food directly then as they are consumed by heterotrophs like herbivores and carnivores the amount of energy transfer is only 5-10% thus it can only support a smaller amount of organisms (biomass)

admin answers:

It is actually only 10% I’m more than pretty sure that Ellie R is wrong, and I have this 20 page website to back me up. Basically here is everything YOU need to know:
“Only a fraction of the energy available at one trophic level is transferred to the next trophic level. The rule of thumb is 10%, but this is very approximate.” (but undoubtedly the number that your professor will want)
“Typically the numbers and biomass of organisms decrease as one ascends the food chain.
…
Assimilation = (Ingestion – Excretion)…
The hare uses a significant fraction of the assimilated energy just being a hare — maintaining a high, constant body temperature, synthesizing proteins, and hopping about. This energy used (lost) is attributed to cellular respiration.”(that is how you answer the second part)

“These efficiencies vary among organisms, largely due to widely differing metabolic requirements. For instance, on average vertebrates use about 98% of assimilated energy for metabolism, leaving only 2% for growth and reproduction. On average, invertebrates use only ~80% of assimilated energy for metabolism, and thus exhibit greater net production efficiency (~20%) than do vertebrates. Plants have the greatest net production efficiencies, which range from 30-85%. ” (cited source)

For the last part of the question I would assume that the answer is “when food is scarce there should be much less focus on providing the human population with meat because of the way energy is transfered. Even though more energy is gained from eating meat, there will be a loss due to cellular respiration. Farming animals is, therefore, less effective than eating the crop as is.” (me)

admin answers:

HEY, I guess that you can found the equation that can relate biomass to photosynthesis rate on this article. I hope you find it helpfull
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pps/7/4/386/_pdf