Principles of Ecology

1. Principles of Ecology Chapter 13

2. Review • What is a system? • Smaller parts working together, organized into a larger whole • What systems are you a part of? • We, as animals, are all part of an ecosystem. • We interact with the environment to get energy and materials.

3. How does this bird interact with its ecosystem? • How does the anhinga interact with its environment? • Matter and energy, in the form of food, move through an ecosystem from producers to consumers. • Producers, such as plants and algae, are organisms that bring energy into an ecosystem. • What is the ultimate source of energy?

4. What is Ecology? • The study of interactions among living things, and between living things and their surroundings.

5. Ecologists study environments at different levels of organization

6. Organism • Individual living thing

7. Population • Group of the same species that lives in one area

8. Community • Group of different species that live together in one area • Just living

9. Ecosystem: living + nonliving • Community and its nonliving surroundings • Includes all of the organisms as well as the climate, soil, water, rocks, and other nonliving things

10. Biome • Major regional or global community of organisms • Usually characterized by its climate conditions and plant communities

12. Ecology Community Biome Biotic Abiotic Keystone species Autotroph Heterotroph Producer Consumer Food chain Herbivore Omnivore Carnivore Detritivore Decomposer Trophic Level Food Web Specialist Generalist Vocabulary to know!

13. An ecosystem includes both biotic and abiotic factors • Biotic factors: living things • Examples: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria • Each organism plays a particular role in the ecosystem.

14. An ecosystem includes both biotic and abiotic factors • Abiotic factors: nonliving thigns • Examples: moisture, temperature, wind, sunlight, and soil • Balance of factors determines if living things survive or not

15. Changing one factor in an ecosystem can affect many other factors • The loss of a single species may cause a ripple effect across an entire ecosystem • Keystone species: a species that has an unusually large effect on its ecosystem

16. Energy in Ecosystems • Producers: organisms that get their energy from nonliving resources • Make their own food • Also called autotrophs • Consumers: organisms that get their energy by eating other live or once-living resources (plants and animals) • Also called heterotrophs

17. All ecosystems depend on producers • Producers provide the basis for the ecosystem’s energy • All consumers depend on producers • But could producers survive without consumers? • Most producers depend on the sun as their source of energy • Use process of photosynthesis • Few producers live deep below a lake’s surface…Why?

18. A few producers do not depend on sunlight • Some producers obtain energy through process of chemosynthesis • Chemosynthesis: process by which an organism uses chemical as an energy sources • Several reactions change the chemicals into usable energy