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How do species interact to generate stability in ecosystems?

How do species interact to generate stability in ecosystems?. Community Interactions. First, some terms… Habitat vs. Niche. A habitat is all the abiotic and biotic factors where an organism lives.

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How do species interact to generate stability in ecosystems?

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  1. How do species interact to generate stability in ecosystems? Community Interactions

  2. First, some terms…Habitat vs. Niche • A habitat is all the abiotic and biotic factors where an organism lives. • A niche is comprised of all the physical, chemical, and biological factors a species needs to survive and thrive. • It’s like its role in the environment (how it lives within the habitat) • Niche Includes: place in the food web, tolerable abiotic conditions, and behaviors

  3. Community Interactions • Community: all interacting species of organisms in a given area • Interactions among organisms can affect population growth and size, thus affecting other populations

  4. Community Factors that affect Overall Ecosystem Health • Diversity • Richness, relative abundance • Prevalent form of vegetation • Dominant plants and their structure • Stability • Type of community, nature of disturbances • Trophic structure • Place in the food chain: competition, predation, and symbiosis

  5. Types of Interactions:Predation • Predation: One animal eats and kills another • Predator benefits from food. • Prey benefits by eliminating non-adaptive genes from the gene pool. • Prey adaptations may include chemical defenses, stings, camouflage, etc…

  6. Types of Interactions:Predation • Predator / Prey Graph • Shows the cycling of prey and predator population sizes based on interactions with each other and quality of the habitat over time

  7. Types of Interactions:Competition • Competition: Two organisms strive to obtain the same limited resource, and both are harmed to some extent • Types of Competition: • Intraspecific: same species compete • Interspecific: different species compete • The more similar the competing species, the more intense the competition

  8. Types of Interactions:Competition • Competitive Exclusion Principle: No two species can occupy the same ecological niche in the same place at the same time. • If you are the “less fit” species, you must evolve into a slightly different niche, move, (or go extinct)

  9. Types of Interactions: Symbiosis • Symbiosis: An overarching term for any interaction that involves a close, physical, and long-term relationship between two species. One species always benefits

  10. Types of Symbiosis: • Parasitism: One organism, the parasite, lives in or on another organism, the host, from which it derives its nourishment

  11. Types of Symbiosis: • Commensalism: One organism benefits while the other is not affected • Eyelash mites • Mutualism: Both species benefit. In most cases one cannot exist without the other. • Acacia ants

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