Download File - Biology and Other Sciences for KICS

Chapter 19
Pages 575 - 618
 Ecology is the study of how an animal relates to its
environment
 Ecology includes studying what an animal eats, what
eats the animal, where the animal lives, and what
effect man has on the area where the animal lives
 This includes the study of pollution
 Pollution means man’s actions hurting the
environment
 Ecology is important because:
 We can study the relationships between organisms
(living things) and their environment (where they live)
 We can predict (guess) what will happen if something is
changed
 We can get ideas for how to change the situation to help
the animals and the environment
 An ecosystem is all of the living things and nonliving
factors and how they all interact within a limited area
 One pond, one forest, one ocean, etc
 Ecosystems are made up of two interacting parts:
 The Abiotic Environment – all of the things in the ecosystem
that are not living
 Pollution, man-made buildings, dead things, weather conditions
(wind, snow, rain, sunlight, etc)
 The Biotic Community – all of the living organisms in the
ecosystem
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Bacteria
Fungi
Plants
Animals
 Radiation
 Atmosphere
 Rotation of the Earth
 What season is it? How hot does it get? How cold does it get?
 Wind
 Topography
 How deep is the water?
 Soil and geological substrate
 What minerals and rocks are in that place?
 Gravity
 Fire
 Fire acts like a “reset” button for that ecosystem. When was
the last fire?
 The biotic community can be divided into two groups:
 Producers – they make things; autotrophic
 Green plants
 Algae
 Consumers – they eat or take things; heterotrophic
 Feeders – eat living things
 Animals
 Protists
 Decomposers – eat dead things
 Fungi
 Bacteria
 A population means all members of the same type of
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living thing (species)
Many individuals make up a population (one fly makes
up a population of flies)
A community is made up of populations that interact
(the grass is food for the rabbit that is food for the bird
that is food for the human)
Communities interacting (in one place) make up an
ecosystem
Ecosystems interacting make up the biosphere
 The food chain means “what eats each thing inside an
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ecosystem”
If you eat a producer (plant or algae), you are a primary
consumer. You are probably an herbivore (herbivorous)
If you are a carnivore that eats herbivores, you are a
secondary consumer
If you are a carnivore or omnivore that eats other
carnivores, you are a tertiary consumer. These are also
called second-level carnivores
Grass – Rabbit – Bird - Human
 Two different species will interact in one of 7 ways
 Neutralism – there is no direct relationship – a snake
and a spider
 Competition – these two species need the same thing in
the environment, and there may not be enough of that
thing for both species – rhinoceros and zebra both need
to eat the grass in one place
 Predation – one species kills and eats the other species –
lions and zebras
 Symbiosis means any close, long-term relationship
between two species – 4 of the 7 interactions are
symbiotic
 Amensalism – one species is harmed by the other
species, but the second species is not harmed or
helped by the first species
 Parasitism – one species depends on the other species
for food and is helped, while the second species is
harmed by the first species
 Commensalism – one species is helped by the other
species, but the second species is not helped or
harmed by the first species
 Mutualism – both species are helped by the other
species – they are helping (benefitting) each other
 Habitat – the area where a kind of organism lives
 The habitat of the bear is the forest
 The habitat of the frog is the pond
 Niche – the role that only that one species can play
within its ecosystem
 Only the grasshopper will eat certain kinds of plants in
one ecosystem
 Only the lion keeps the zebra population from getting
too large
 Biological rhythms – things that cause organisms to
change their location (place), activities, or both
regularly
 There are three kinds of rhythms
 Diurnal Rhythms – they happen every 24 hours
 You sleep at night and get up in the morning
 Seasonal Rhythms – they happen over 1 year
 Trees lose their leaves every year in the fall
 Lunar Rhythms – they are related to the phases of the
moon
 Ocean tides are related to the moon
 Man effects his environment in two ways:
 Consumer – man takes things from the ecosystem to eat and
to build things
 We kill pigs to eat them
 We cut down trees to make paper
 If man consumes (uses) too much of one thing, he may hurt the
ecosystem
 Manager – man changes the environment to make the
environment meet his needs
 The farmer cuts down trees to make room his field
 We blow up mountains to make highway
 *We have dominion over the ecosystems, but with dominion
comes responsibility to take care of the ecosystems*
 Pollution occurs when man puts things into the
environment that hurt the environment in a big way
 There are two kinds of pollutants (things that pollute)
 Energy pollutants
 Heat
 Light
 Sound
 Substance pollutants
 Biodegradable – breaks down in the environment – paper,
wood
 Nonbiodegradable – does not break down in the
environment – plastic, glass