Ecology of the Barn Owl

Energy Flow Through Ecosystems

Organisms depend on inputs of energy (in the form of sunlight or high-energy molecules), water,
and minerals for growth. Except for a few limited ecosystems such as caves and deep-sea
thermal systems, solar energy is the ultimate source of energy which drives the ecosystem. Even
the fossil fuelscoal, oil, and natural gasupon which the economy of modern civilization is
based are reserves of captured solar energy locked in the remains of organisms that lived millions
of years ago.
Only about 1% of the solar energy that arrived on the Earth is captured and utilized by plants in
photosynthesis. The remaining energy is either radiates back into the atmosphere as heat or
consumed by the evaporation of water from plants. The energy that is captured powers the
metabolism of ecosystems. Plants use most of the energy they capture to maintain themselves
and to grow and reproduce. Some of this energy produces new tissues which can be eaten by
herbivores or used by organisms after the plants die. Because so much of the energy they capture
goes to power their own metabolism, plants always contain much less energy than the total
amount they have assimilated; only the energy plants do not use to maintain themselves is
available to be harvested by consumers and decomposers.
Because energy flows through ecosystems when organisms eat one another, biologists find it
useful to group organisms according to their source of energy. The organisms that obtain energy
from a common source constitute a trophic level.
Organisms at a particular trophic level occupy a position in an ecosystem that is determined by
the numbers of steps through which energy passes to reach them. Photosynthetic plants get their
energy directly from sunlight. Collectively, they constitute the trophic level called primary
producers. They produce the energy-rich organic molecules upon which nearly all other
organisms feed.
All other organisms are called consumers because they consume, either directly or indirectly, the
energy-rich molecules produced by photosynthetic organisms. Organisms that eat plants
constitute the trophic level called herbivores. Organisms that eat herbivores are called primary
consumers. Those that eat primary carnivores are called secondary carnivores, and so on.
Organisms that eat the dead bodies of organisms or their waste products are called detritovores
or decomposers. The many organisms that obtain their energy from more than one trophic level
are called omnivores.

The Major Trophic Levels

Trophic Level

Source of Energy

Examples

Photosynthesizers
(primary producers)

Solar Energy

Green plants, photosynthetic

bacteria, some protists

Herbivores

Tissues of Primary
Producers

Termites, grasshoppers, deer, geese

Primary Carnivores

Herbivores

Spiders, wolves, squid

Secondary Carnivores

Primary Carnivores

Tuna, falcons, killer whales

Omnivores

Many trophic levels

Humans, opossums, crabs

Decomposers

Dead bodies and waste

products of other organisms

Fungi, many bacteria, vultures,

earthworms

A sequence of linkages in which a plant is eaten by an herbivore, which is I turn eaten by a

primary carnivore, and so on, is called a food chain. Food chains are usually interconnected to
make food webs. Food webs result from the fact that most species in a community eat and are
eaten by more than one other species.
Only a small portion of the energy captured at
one trophic level is available to organisms at
the next higher level because the energy that
organisms use to maintain themselves is
dissipated as heart, a form of energy that
cannot be used by other organisms. To show
how energy decreases in moving from lower
to higher trophic levels, ecologists construct
diagrams called pyramids of energy. A
pyramid of biomass, which shows the mass of
organisms existing at different trophic levels,
illustrates the amount of biomass that is
available at a given moment in time for
organisms at the next trophic level.
Pyramids of energy and biomass for the same
ecosystem usually have similar shapes, but
sometimes they do not. The shapes depend
on the dominant organisms and how they allocate their energies. In most terrestrial ecosystems,
the dominant photosynthetic plants are large and store energy for long periods, much of it in
difficult-to-digest forms such as the cellulose found in the wood of trees. However, terrestrial
ecosystems may differ strikingly in patters of energy flow depending on the life forms of the
dominant plants. In grassland ecosystems, plants produce few hard-to-digest woody tissue so

animals are able to consume most of the annual production of plant tissue.
By contrast, the dominant plants in forest ecosystems allocate a great deal of their energy to
forming wood, which accumulates at high rates ingrowing forests. Wood, which is difficult to
impossible for most organisms to digest, is rarely eaten. In most forests, leaves fall to the ground
relatively undamaged and the end of the growing season. Although there are outbreaks of
defoliating insects in forests, browsing rates are generally so low that forest ecologists often
ignore losses to herbivores when calculating forest production.
The Role of the Owl in Pasture Ecosystems
The barn owl is the most widespread of all owls. They can be found in the United States and
Mexico, South America, Africa, Europe, India, and Australia. Some of the reasons for this
widespread distribution are their ability to adapt to agrarian habitats and the widespread
distribution of their prey. Barns owls are the top carnivore in their food web. They hunt for
small mammals such as mice, rats, voles, and shrews, but have no common predators. As such,
they are instrumental for maintaining the populations of these pests in open grassland and farm
ecosystems.
Barn owls can see in almost complete darkness, but their primary hunting sense is hearing. Barn
owls appear to have large heads, but this is an illusion. The bulk of the head is actually
comprised of feathers. The facial feathers act like a satellite dish, focusing the sound waves to
the ear. Barn owls are also capable of almost soundless flight, allowing them to swoop down and
grab small mammals without alerting them.
Once caught, the owl quickly kills the prey with its beak and swallows the animal whole. The
animal moves down the esophagus to the glandular stomach. Here, the action of the stomach
along with secreted chemicals separate the meat of the animal from the indigestible hair and
bones. The meat passes to the muscular stomach for further digestion; the hair and bones are
compacted in the glandular stomach. The compacted bolus of hair and bones are then
regurgitated from the owl in structures known as owl pellets.
By studying owl pellets over long periods of time, scientists can learn about what owls are eating,
how often they are eating, as well as make inferences about the population cycles of the various
prey organisms the owls feed upon. Owl pellet studies have become critical to understanding the
ecology of one of the most important ecosystems - farmlands.

Name: ___________________________________
TA: ______________________________________

1. Give two examples of organisms (NOT listed in the handout) of organisms from each trophic
level.
Producer

Herbivore

Primary Carnivore

Secondary Carnivore

Detritovores

2. To what trophic level does the barn owl belong? How did you determine this?

3. Does the amount of energy increase or decrease as one goes up an energy pyramid? Explain
your answer.

4. Imagine that during the spring and summer, the population of mice and rodents increases fourfold. What effects would this have on the barn owl population? What effects would this
have on the crops on the farm where the barn-owl lives?

5. How many of each type of bone listed below did you find in your owl pellet? Be sure you list
the total number and the species of each specimen if known
A. Skulls and mandibles

B. Femurs

C. Pelvic girdles (hipbones)

D. List other types of bones found.

6. Are the bones of rodents similar to the bones in humans? Why is this? How does this relate
to vertebrate evolution?