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Ecology. THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AN ORGANISM AND ITS’ ENVIRONMENT IS CALLED ECOLOGY. Biosphere.
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Ecology THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AN ORGANISM AND ITS’ ENVIRONMENT IS CALLED ECOLOGY
Biosphere • While the earth is huge, life is found in a very narrow layer, called the biosphere. If the earth could be shrunk to the size of an apple, the biosphere would be no thicker than the apple's skin. • The biosphere, like the human body, is made up of systems that interact and are dependent on each other.
Ecosystem • The biosphere’s systems are called ECOSYSTEMS. • All ecosystems must have a constant source of energy (usually the sun) and cycles or systems to reuse raw materials. Examples are the water, nitrogen and carbon cycles. • An ecosystem is made up of all the biotic or living and the abiotic or non-living components in a given area.
Abiotic Factors The nonliving things in an environment are called ABIOTIC factors. Examples of abiotic factors are sunlight ,temperature, rainfall, climate and soil conditions.
Biotic Factors • Biotic factorsare all the living things or their materials that directly or indirectly affect an organism in its environment. This would include organisms, their presence, parts, interaction, and wastes. Factors such as parasitism, disease, and predation (one animal eating another) would also be classified as biotic factors. Some Biotic Factors • parasitism • disease • predation
Population • A population is all the members of a given species in a given area. Example - All the turtles in Town Lake.
For example, the red fox's habitat, which might include forest edges, meadows and the bank of a river, is shared with many animals . • The niche of the red fox is that of a predator which feeds on the small mammals, amphibians, insects, and fruit found in this habitat. Red foxes are active at night. They provide blood for blackflies and mosquitoes, and are host to numerous diseases. The scraps, or carrion, left behind after a fox's meal provide food for many small scavengers and decomposers. This, then, is the ecological niche of the red fox. • Only the red fox occupies this niche in the meadow-forest edge communities. In other plant communities different species of animal may occupy a similar niche to that of the red fox.
Ecology Energy Flow
Autotrophs areproducers, they can synthesize their own organic nutrients. • They can do this by photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. • Chemosynthetic bacteria get energy and raw materials from vents called "smokers" on the ocean floor. • Tube worms rely upon the bacteria that coexist with them to make food at the bottom of the ocean.
Heterotrophsare consumers, they must consume preformed organic nutrients synthesized by other organisms. "I MUST BE A HETEROTROPH, I CAN'T SYNTHESIZE THESE !!"
Examples of heterotrophs: • Saprophytes are decomposers they eat dead or decaying material. Examples are mushrooms and bacteria of decay. • Scavengers – eat carrion • Herbivores- eat plants • Carnivores- eat meat • Omnivores- eat both plants and meat
SYMBIOSIS means "living together" • Types of Symbiosis • parasitism: the parasite benefits at the expense of the host • mutualism: both organisms benefit from the association • commensalism: one organism is benefited and the other is unharmed
The Clown fish and sea anemone both benefit from living together
This skin fluke causes tissue damage on the koi it attaches to.
A food chain indicates the transfer of energy from producers through a series of organisms which feed upon each other
The algae and plants are the producers. • The aquatic crustaceans are primary consumers – they eat the producers. • Fish are secondary consumers – they eat the primary consumers. • The raccoons represent a 3rd level of consumer.
Food Webs • A food web is a series of interrelated food chains which provides a more accurate picture of the feeding relationships in an ecosystem, as more than one thing will usually eat a particular species.
Trophic Levels • An energy pyramid provides a means of describing the feeding and energy relationships within a food chain or web. • Each step of an energy pyramid shows that some energy is stored in newly made structures of the organism which eats the preceding one. • The pyramid also shows that much of the energy is lost when one organism in a food chain eats another. Most of this energy which is lost goes into the environment as heat energy.
or tertiary • Producer organisms represent the greatest amount of living tissue or biomass at the bottom of the pyramid. • The organisms which occupy the rest of the pyramid belong to the feeding levels indicated in each step. • On average, each feeding level only contains 10% of the energy as the one below it, with the energy that is lost mostly being transformed to heat.
Ecology Community Distribution
Ecosystem Stability • The interrelationships and interdependencies of organisms affect the development of stable ecosystems – in other words the homeostasis of ecosystems. • The types of animal communities found in an ecosystem is dependent upon the kinds of plants and other producer organisms in that ecosystem.
Ecosystems are in a constant state of change. • Change can be rapid or slow depending on fluctuation in biotic or abiotic factors.
Tolerance Tolerance is the ability to withstand fluctuations in biotic and abiotic environmental factors. • Biodiversity gives an ecosystem more tolerance. • The greater the biodiversity, the healthier the ecosystem.
Limiting Factors • Limiting factors are any biotic or abiotic factors that restrict existence, reproduction, or distribution of organisms.
Succession • Succession - orderly, natural changes that take place in communities of an ecosystem over time.
Primary Succession • Primary succession is the colonization of new sites by communities of organisms.
Secondary Succession • Secondary succession is the sequence of community changes that occur when a community is disrupted by natural disasters or human actions.
Climax Community • The final stable plant community is called a climax community. This community may reach a point of stability that can last for hundreds or thousands of years.
Ecology Population Biology
Carrying Capacity • Carrying capacityrefers to the size of a population that can live indefinitely in an environment without doing that environment any harm. This applies to all organisms.
Exponential Growth • Exponential growth is unrestricted so the given population quickly grows.
