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Transcript
Ecology Levels of Organization • • • • • • Biosphere Biome Ecosystem Community Population Individual FoodChain • Producer • Consumer • Path of food therefore energy from a given top order consumer back to a producer. Food Web All the feeding relationships in an ecosystem Pyramids • Biomass decreases going up in the food chain because: • 1. Not everything in the lower levels gets eaten • 2. Not everything that is eaten is digested. • 3. Energy is always being lost as heat. 10% rule • Only 10% of the energy available in one trophic level is transferred to organisms at the next trophic level • Would it make more ecological sense then to be a vegetarian? Absolutely!! • Eating from the top of the pyramid all the time we are essentially consuming more land to get our energy needs met. • Environmentalists say eating vegetarian reduces your footprint more than any other lifestyle change. Laws of Thermodynamics • Energy is neither created or destroyed but may change forms. • Energy is moving toward disorder, entropy, or unusable energy such as heat. www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/ climch/clichgr1.htm Biodiversity Extinction • Extinction of a species occurs when it ceases to exist; may follow environmental change - if the species does not evolve • Evolution and extinction are affected by: – large scale movements of continents – gradual climate changes due to continental drift or orbit changes – rapid climate changes due to catastrophic events Extinction • Background extinction - species disappear at a low rate as local conditions change • Mass extinction - catastrophic, wide-spread events --> abrupt increase in extinction rate • Five mass extinctions in past 500 million years • Adaptive radiation - new species evolve during recovery period following mass extinction Community Relationships Niche a species’ functional role in its ecosystem; includes anything affecting species survival and reproduction 1. 2. 3. 4. Types of resources used Interactions with living and nonliving components of ecosystems Range of tolerance for various physical and chemical conditions Role played in flow of energy and matter cycling Niche is the species’ occupation and its Habitat location of species (its address) Species Interaction Competition any interaction between two or more species for a resource that causes a decrease in the population growth or distribution of one of the species Could be a Limiting Factor: Density Dependent Density Independent Competition Competition Predation: prey adaptations • Avoid detection – camouflage, mimics, – diurnal/nocturnal • Avoid capture – flee – resist – escape • Disrupt handling (prevent being eaten) – struggle? – protection, toxins Herbivory Rewards of Mutualism • Food: energy and nutrients • Protection: – from other species (competition, predation) – from the physical environment (shelter) • Gamete or zygote dispersal (the most common of all) • Pollination and fruit dispersal (between plants and animals). Pollination (hummingbird/bee and flowering plants) • animals visit flowers to collect nectar and incidentally carry pollen from one flower to another • animals get food and the plant get a pollination service • Yucca moth and yucca Yucca’s only pollinator is the yucca moth. Hence entirely dependent on it for dispersal. • Yucca moth caterpillar’s only food is yucca seeds. • Yucca moth lives in yucca and receives shelter from plant. Lichen (Fungi-algae) • Symbiotic relationship of algae and fungae…results in very different growth formas with and without symbiont. • What are the benefits to the fungus? Seed Disperser • Many birds and mammals consume fruits and incidentally disperse the seeds contained in those fruits – Animals get food and the plant gets seed dispersal (often with fertilizer) Symbiosis in animal cells or tissues (aphids and bacteria) • Aphids need bacteria to metabolize photosynthate. • Buchnera is a modified bacterium that retained its genome for amino acid production while losing much of its total genome. • 10-50 million Buchnera cells per mg aphid fresh weight. Ant-tended plants • Ants live inside swollen Acacia thorns or hollow stems, e.g. Cecropia trees. • Patrol for caterpillars or leaf predators and storm out to repel intruders…including you! Commensalists • Benefit from the host at almost no cost to the host • Eyelash mite and humans • Us and starlings or house sparrows • Sharks and remora Parasites Parasites: draw resources from host without killing the host (at least in the short term).