Ch. 50-Ecology

1. Ch. 50-Ecology Erik Kurtz, Ally Mann, Kristina Martin

2. Abiotic Factors • Non-living factors • Chemical and physical factors • Examples: temperature, light, and nutrients • Major abiotic factors

3. Biotic Factors • Living organisms that are apart of an individuals environment

4. Levels of Ecology

5. Organismal Ecology • The behavioral, physiological, and morphological ways that an organism meets challenges posed by their abiotic environment.

6. Population Ecology • Factors that affect population size and composition.

7. Community Ecology • Interactions among organisms, such as predation, competition, and disease, that affects community structure and organization.

8. Ecosystem Ecology • Concerns energy flow and the cycling of chemicals among the various biotic and abiotic components.

9. Landscape Ecology • Deals with an array of ecosystems and how they are arranged in a geographic region.

10. Global Ecology • Includes atmosphere, and rocks beneath the ground • Looks at the world as a whole with patterns • Major abiotic factors: • Temperature, water, sunlight, wind, rocks and soil, and periodic disturbances

11. Abiotic factors that affect… • Climate • Biotic factors

12. Climate • Temperature • Water • Sunlight • Wind • Latitudinal variation

13. Biome • Water • Temperature • Rocks and soil • Sunlight • Wind • Mountains

15. Global/macroclimate vs. microclimate • Global abiotic factors: • Temperature, water, sunlight, wind, rocks and soil, periodic disturbances • Macroclimate: • Local, regional, or global climates • Microclimate: • Very small pattern underneath rocks, etc., affected by the macroclimate

16. Air cells and biomes • Temperature, wind, water, and sunlight • Air cells: • Sunlight causes warm air at equator to rise, air cools, and drops large amounts of water over tropics • Dry are moves and cools towards poles, absorb water from land, and releases water around 30 degrees altitude north and south • This creates three air circulation cells on either side of equator

18. Rainshadow effect • Temperature, wind, and water • Rainshadow effect: • Mountains push moister-laden air up • The air cools, and moisture condenses • Heavy rainfall on the side of the mountain • Dry air absorbs moisture on other side • Creates dry climate on the other side (desert)

20. Various aquatic and terrestrial biomes • Aquatic biomes: • Oligotrophic lake, eutrophic lake, stream flowing into river, wetlands, estuary, coral reif, intertidal, benthos • Terrestrial biomes: • Tropical forest, Savanna, Desert, Chaparral, Temperate grassland, Temperate deciduous forest, Coniferous forest, Tundra

23. Lake Turnover

24. Organismal Ecology concepts…

25. Regulators vs. conformers • Regulators • Organisms that use behavioral and physiological mechanisms to achieve homeostasis in the face of environmental fluctuations in temperature, moisture, light intensity, and concentrations of a variety of chemical factors. • Conformers • Those that are in relatively stable environments, that allow some conditions within their bodies to vary with external changes.

26. Principle of allocation • This principle states that each organisms has a limited amount of energy that can be used for obtaining nutrients, escaping from predators, coping with environmental fluctuations (maintaining homeostasis), growth, and reproduction. Energy that has already been used, is not available for other functions.

27. Acclimation and response to environment • Acclimation: • Involves substantial but reversible changes that shift an organism’s tolerance curve in the direction of the environmental change • Responses: • Behavioral, morphological, and physiological