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Ecology
Energy Flow
• Autotrophs are producers,
they can synthesize their own
organic nutrients.
• They can do this by photosynthesis
or chemosynthesis.
• Photosynthesis takes place in
plants.
• Chemosynthesis takes place on the
ocean floor.
• 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.
• Heterotrophs are 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
Trophic Levels
• Producers-organisms that produce their
own food (photosynthetic or
chemosynthetic)
• Consumers-must eat other organisms:
Primary consumers-eat producers
Secondary consumers-eat primary
consumers
Tertiary consumers-eat secondary
consumers
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.
• 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.
"What shall I eat today...meat or veggies....."
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 remora benefits from its’ association
with the shark. The shark is unaffected
(commensalism)
•The Clown fish and sea anemone both benefit
from living together (mutualism)
• This skin fluke causes tissue damage
on the koi it attaches to.
(parasitism)