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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
The Web of Life
How are living things connected?
• Organisms need energy and matter for life.
• Interactions between organisms allow the
exchange of energy and matter.
• Ecology is the study of how organisms interact
with one another and with the environment.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
How are living things connected?
• Biodiversity is the variation of living organisms.
• Organisms are connected to all other organisms
because each individual organism has a role to
play in the flow of energy and matter.
• A biotic factor, such as an organism and how it
interacts, is a living part of the environment.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
How are living things connected?
• All organisms rely on the nonliving environment
for survival.
• An abiotic factor, or nonliving part, of an
environment includes water, nutrients, soil,
sunlight, rainfall, and temperature.
• Abiotic factors determine where organisms can
survive.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
Stay Organized!
What are all the levels of organization
in the environment?
• The environment can be organized into different
levels that range from a single organism to all of
the organisms in an area.
• An individual is the smallest level of organization.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
What are all the levels of organization
in the environment?
• A population is a group of individuals of the
same species that live in the same place.
• A species includes organisms that are closely
related and can mate to produce fertile offspring.
• Individuals within a population often compete with
each other for food, shelter, and mates.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
What are all the levels of organization
in the environment?
• A community is made up of all the species that
live and interact in an area.
• The species in a community depend on each other
for many things, such as shelter and food.
• Just like the members of a population, the
organisms in a community compete with each
other for resources.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
What are all the levels of organization
in the environment?
• An ecosystem is a community of organisms and
their nonliving environment.
• In an ecosystem, energy and other resources are
exchanged between organisms and the
environment.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
Home Sweet Home
What determines where a population
can live?
• Organisms that live in the same area play
different roles to get the resources they need to
survive.
• Ecologists use the terms habitat and niche to
describe where an organism lives and its role in
the environment.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
What determines where a population
can live?
• Habitat is the place where an organism usually
lives.
• Abiotic factors such as temperature often
determine whether a species can live in a certain
place.
• Biotic factors, such as other organisms that live in
an area, also determine whether a species can live
in a certain place.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
What determines where a population
can live?
• A population’s niche is the role the population
plays in the ecosystem, such as how it gets food
and interacts with other populations.
• In general, two populations cannot occupy exactly
the same niche.
• Small differences in habitats, roles, and
adaptations can allow similar species to live
together in the same ecosystem.
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Unit 8 Lesson 1 Introduction to Ecology
Lizard Invasion
• The habitat of South Florida’s green anoles was
invaded by a similar lizard, the brown anole.
• The lizards avoid occupying the same habitat by
the way they share a tree. Green anoles move to
the higher branches, and brown anoles occupy the
ground branches.
• Competition exists between the anoles. Brown
anoles eat the young of the green anoles.
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