Welcome to: Foundations of Ecology Biology 356

1. Welcome to:Foundations of EcologyBiology 356 J. Ruesink Lecture 1 Introduction/ Adaptation

2. What do ecologists do? • How many of you are familiar with the following jobs: • Computer programmer • Marketing department • Artist • Biotechnologist • Ecologist

3. What does this course cover? • Basic principles of ecology • Methods that ecologists use • Experiments, models, observations • Graphical presentation of ecological data • Interpretation of ecological data • Evaluation of primary literature

4. What does this course cover? • 3 Exams (20% each) • Feb 3, Feb 24, Mar 16 • 4 In-class exercises (5% each) • 2 Literature reviews (5% each) • Independent write-up of scientific study (estimating crow population size) (10%)

5. What does this course cover? Week 9, 10 Landscapes: Week 8 Week 5-7 Week 2 Week 3, 4 Week 1, 2 Fig 1.1

6. Syllabus

7. Who is my TA? • Last names A-L: Shallin Busch • Last names M-Z: Jon Moore

8. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles • Review material from Biology 180 • Eukaryotes or Prokaryotes • Autotrophs or Heterotrophs • Plants • Animals • Fungi • Protists • Bacteria

9. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles • Review material from Biology 180 • Eukaryotes or Prokaryotes • Autotrophs or Heterotrophs • Plants • Animals • Fungi • Protists • Bacteria

10. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles • Review material from Biology 180 • Eukaryotes or Prokaryotes • Autotrophs or Heterotrophs • Plants • Animals • Fungi • Protists • Bacteria

11. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles • Review material from Biology 180 • Eukaryotes or Prokaryotes • Autotrophs or Heterotrophs • Plants • Animals • Fungi • Protists • Bacteria

12. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles • Review material from Biology 180 • Eukaryotes or Prokaryotes • Autotrophs or Heterotrophs • Plants • Animals • Fungi • Protists • Bacteria

13. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles • Review material from Biology 180 • Eukaryotes or Prokaryotes • Autotrophs or Heterotrophs • Plants • Animals • Fungi • Protists • Bacteria

14. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles Fig 1.5

15. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles SUN Photoautotrophs Inorganic carbon Dead organic matter Inorganic & organic nutrients Heterotrophs (Decomposers)

16. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles SUN Photoautotrophs Inorganic carbon Dead organic matter Inorganic & organic nutrients Heterotrophs (Decomposers)

17. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles SUN Plants, Protists Photoautotrophs Inorganic carbon Dead organic matter Inorganic nutrients Fungi, Bacteria Heterotrophs (Decomposers)

18. Different groups of organisms play different ecological roles Animals, some protists SUN Heterotrophs (Consumers) Photoautotrophs Inorganic carbon Dead organic matter Inorganic nutrients Heterotrophs (Decomposers) Heterotrophs (Consumers)

19. Ecological principles • Ecological systems are physical entities • Ecological systems exist in dynamic steady states • Maintenance of living systems requires expenditure of energy (Boundary is essential) • Ecological systems undergo evolutionary change

20. Maintenance of living systems requires expenditure of energy (Boundary is essential) Fig 3.12

21. Homeostasis: organism’s ability to maintain a constant internal environment despite variation in the environment • Maintenance of living systems requires expenditure of energy (Boundary is essential)

22. See Ch. 1 p. 15: Natural selection requires heritable variation and differential survival and reproduction Also see Ch. 9 P. 182-3 • Ecological systems undergo evolutionary change

23. Diverse life forms are a product of evolution • Habitats vary. • No single species can exist in all habitats. (Tradeoffs exist.) An organism’s niche represents the ranges of conditions that it tolerates and the ways of life it pursues.

24. Habitats vary.

25. An organism’s niche represents the ranges of conditions that it tolerates and the ways of life it pursues.

26. Adaptation • Attributes of structure or function that suit an organism to the conditions of its environment • May be adaptations to physical characteristics of the environment • Or to biological characteristics of the environment

27. Adaptation

28. Adaptation

29. Adaptation

30. Physical characteristics of the environment that affect plants • Light • Nutrients • Water • Temperature • Carbon dioxide

31. Physical characteristics of the environment that affect plants • Light • Nutrients • Water • Temperature • Carbon dioxide As you read chapter 3, you should write down examples of plant adaptations to (extremes of) each of these environmental conditions

32. Nutrients • Distribution of nutrients, as well as total amount, influences plant growth

33. Nutrients • Plants have adapted to use “pockets” of nutrients by locally increasing root density

34. Physical characteristics of the environment that affect animals • Temperature • Water • Salt balance • Oxygen • (Food supply = biological)

35. Temperature • Endotherms use internal metabolic processes to adjust body temperature • Ectotherms cannot control temperature internally, only through behavior

36. Temperature • Cold adaptations • Large body size (small surface to volume ratio) • Storage of food • Hibernation/ torpor

37. Ecological principle: Activity space Fig 9.4

38. What do ecologists do? • Measure characteristics of the environment • Count organisms • Observe their responses to and affects on their environment

39. Today’s in-class exercise • Form a group of 4 people. Hand in separate worksheets. • Do a mark-recapture study to estimate the number of individuals in a population of beans. • Vary the number of beans marked. • Vary the number of beans sampled.