Download What is the Environment?

Ecology
Everything Is Connected To
Everything Else
What is Ecology?
• Ecology is the study of the
relationships and interactions of
living things with one another and
with their environment.
What is the Environment?
• The environment includes all living and
nonliving things that surround an
organism.
Biotic vs Abiotic
• Biotic includes all
living things in the
environment.
– Examples: plants,
animals, insects,
protists, fungi,
bacteria, etc.
• Abiotic includes all
nonliving things in
the environment.
– Examples: light,
temperature, wind,
rocks, soil.
Is Water Biotic or Abiotic?
• Water itself is abiotic.
– Water contains many life forms
– Water is the one thing required by all
living things.
What is an Ecosystem?
• Scientists divide the world into
separate ecosystems.
– Example: a forest ecosystem
• An ecosystem is an area in which
living things and nonliving things
interact, exchanging energy and
materials.
What is a Community?
• A community is the living part of any
ecosystem - all the different
organisms that live together in that
area.
All the
living
things in
an area
form a
community
What is a Population?
• Each kind of living thing makes up a
population in the community.
• A population is a group of organisms
of the same species living together in
the same area.
Sea anemone population
Gopher mounds
What is a Habitat?
• A habitat is the specific place in which an
organism lives.
– A habitat provides food, shelter, and the other
resources an organism needs to survive.
– Different organisms live in different habitats
because they have different needs.
Ant population in its habitat
Egret population in its habitat with its community
Limiting factors
Energy Roles in the
Environment
• Organisms can be producers,
consumers or decomposers.
– These roles indicate how an organism
gets its energy and how it interacts
with other living things in the
community.
What is a Producer?
• A producer is the source of all the
food in an ecosystem.
– Producers are able to take a source of
energy, (such as sunlight), to turn raw
materials, (such as water and carbon
dioxide), into energy.
– Examples are green plants and certain
microorganisms.
What is a
Consumer?
• A consumer is an organism that feeds
directly or indirectly on producers.
– There are many kinds of consumers:
• Herbivores
• Carnivores
• Omnivores
• Scavengers
Herbivores
• Herbivores are consumers that feed
on plants.
– Examples are grasshoppers and rabbits
Herbivores
Herbivores
Carnivores
• Carnivores are consumers that feed
on other animals.
– Examples are spiders, snakes, wolves.
Carnivores
Carnivorous
Plants
Omnivores
• Omnivores are consumers that
feed on both plants and other
animals.
– Examples are humans, crows,
bears.
Omnivores
Scavengers
• Scavengers are animals that feed on
the bodies of dead animals.
• Examples are vultures, jackals,
hyenas.
More
Scavengers
What is a Decomposer?
• Decomposers are
organisms that break
down dead organisms
into simpler substances.
• Examples are mold,
mushrooms, bacteria.
Food Chains and Food Webs
• The food and energy links among
producers and consumers in an
ecosystem are represented by food
chains and food webs.
Food Chain
• A food chain represents a series of events
in which food and energy are transferred
from one organism in an ecosystem to
another.
– The first link in a food chain is always a
producer.
– The second link is a herbivore.
– The third link, and all the links after that, are
almost always carnivores.
– The “end” of a food chain is always connected
to the “beginning” by decomposers.
Food Web
• Since there are many organisms in an
ecosystem, and few that eat only one kind
of food, there must be more than one food
chain in an ecosystem.
• A food web consists of many overlapping
food chains.
– Food webs give the whole picture of the food
and energy relationships in an ecosystem.
What is a Niche?
• Every organism has a niche in life.
• A niche is the role an organism has in
an ecosystem.
– Niche is “what the organism does”
– An organisms niche includes: the place it
lives; the food it eats; the organisms
that feed on it, interact with it; the
amount of light, humidity and other
physical conditions it needs to survive.
Interaction Among Living
Things
• Ecosystems involve many interactions
between organisms.
• Each organism in a community has its
own unique role to play. This role, or
niche, is more than just the organisms
place in the food web.
Competition is Interaction
Competition vs Interaction
• Because the resources (food, water,
shelter, light etc.) of an ecosystem
are limited, it can not satisfy the
needs of all the organisms living in it.
• Competition is the interaction, or
struggle, of organisms against each
other to get the things they need to
survive.
Plant Competition
Animal
Competition
Predation is Interaction
• Predators are living things that
catch, kill, and eat other living things.
– Examples: cats, hawks, snakes.
• Prey are the organisms that are
eaten by predators.
– Examples: mice,
• Predation plays an important role in
shaping the structure of a community.
Some
Predators
Symbiosis is Interaction
• Symbiosis is the close relationship
between two organisms in which at
least one organism benefits.
• In symbiosis one organism lives near,
on, or even inside, another organism.
Cycles in Nature Time
• Cycles in nature often
occur in a regular
rhythm, or time
pattern.
What is Rhythm?
• A rhythm is any pattern that occurs
over and over again.
• Many biological rhythms are often in
harmony with natural cycles.
– Daily rhythms
– Lunar rhythms
– Annual rhythms
Daily Rhythms
• Diurnal organisms
are those that are
active during the
day.
• Nocturnal
organisms are
those that are
active during the
night.
Lunar Rhythms
• Lunar rhythms are rhythms that are
controlled by the moon, such as the
rise and fall of the tides.
What are Biological Clocks?
• Biological clocks are internal timers that
may be responsible for keeping track of
many different cycles of time.
Why Have Biological Clocks?
• Biological clocks help organisms survive.
• Biological clocks help living things stay
in step with rhythmic cycles of change in
their environment.
– When the time is right, biological clocks
tell organisms to change their appearance,
behavior, or body functions in some way.
Cycles in Nature –
Annual Rhythms
• Many natural rhythms are closely
associated with the seasons of the
year.
• Annual rhythms are events that
occur once a year.
– There are many examples of annual
rhythms such as migration, hibernation
and estivation.
Cycles in Nature - Migration
• Migrations are annual rhythms in
which organisms travel from the
place where they breed to the
place where they feed.
Why Migrate?
– Organisms migrate to find more
beneficial environments as seasonal
changes make their old environment less
habitable.
– Examples: Geese, turtles, whales, salmon
Migration Patterns
Cycles in Nature - Hibernation
• Some organisms avoid unfavorable
seasonal changes by “sleeping”
through the bad periods of the year.
• During this “sleep” the body functions
of the animal slows down.
• This enables animals to wait out the
bad periods of the year in a sheltered
hiding place.
What is Hibernation?
• Hibernation is the winter resting,
“sleeping”, state for organisms avoiding
the cold, harsh winter months.
– Examples: bears, toads.
Hibernating Boar
What is Estivation
• Estivation is the summer resting,
“sleeping” state for organisms avoiding
the hot, dry, harsh summer months.
– Example: African lungfish buries itself in
the mud at the bottom of the lake before
it dries out. These fish can survive for
years in their shell of dried mud.
Estivation
Cycles of Matter
• Matter can not be created or destroyed.
• Matter, in the form of chemicals, flows
in cycles from the nonliving part of the
environment to living things and back
again.
4 Important Matter Cycles
• Hydrologic
(Water) Cycle
• Carbon Cycle
• Oxygen Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle
The Water Cycle
Water Cycle Terms
• Radiation is the suns energy (heating water).
• Evaporation is water (liquid) changing to water
vapor (gas). Evaporation requires energy.
• Condensation is water vapor (gas) changing to
water (liquid). Condensation releases energy.
• Precipitation is any form of water falling from
the sky.
• Infiltration/Percolation is water filtering into
the ground.
• Runoff is water that flows on top of the ground.
• Perspiration is water that comes out of animals in
the form of sweat. Respiration is from breathing.
• Transpiration is water that comes out of plants.
The Oxygen and Carbon Cycles
• Carbon dioxide is used by producers
such as green plants.
• Oxygen is released by producers such
as green plants.
• Oxygen is used by air-breathing
organisms.
• Carbon dioxide is released by airbreathing organisms.
Two Carbon Cycles
The Nitrogen Cycle
• All living things need nitrogen but most organisms can not get
enough from the air.
• Nitrogen fixation by bacteria use free nitrogen in the air to make
nitrogen compounds called nitrates.
• Plants use the nitrates to make compounds called proteins.
• Other organisms that can not use nitrates directly use the
proteins containing nitrogen.
• Decomposers, such as bacteria, break down the complex nitrogen
compounds in dead organisms and animal waste, returning simple
nitrogen to the soil.
• Nitrogen can go back and forth between plants and soil many
times.
• Eventually bacteria break down the nitrogen compounds into free
nitrogen which is released into the air.
Nitrogen
Cycle
Wildlife Conservation
• Extinction is the process by which a
species passes out of existence.
• Organisms that are so rare that they
are in danger of becoming extinct are
said to be endangered.
– About 4500 kinds of animals and 20,000
kinds of plants are endangered.
Extinct Species
Passenger Pidgeon
Triceratops
Do do Bird
Endangered Species
Threats to Wildlife
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Intentional Killing
Deforestation
Desertification
Wetlands destruction
Pollution
Changing communities – exotic species
Accidental killing
Intentional Killing
Poaching
Desertification
Wetlands Destruction
Pollution
Pollution
Exotic/Invasive Species
Accidental Killing