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Ecology project Name ______________________________________________________ Period _________ Instructions: Part 1: What is the biosphere? Life on Earth extends from the ocean depths to a few miles above the land’s surface. Ecologists call this area the biosphere. The biosphere is an extremely complex system and difficult to understand. So, scientists have divided up the biosphere into ecosystems which are smaller and easier to study. You are the scientist and about to set up your ecosystem to help you understand the biosphere as a whole. Ecosystem is a physically distinct, self-supporting unit of interacting organisms and their surrounding environments. Questions: What is the biosphere? How do scientists study the biosphere? Part 2: What is an ecosystem? An ecosystem is a physically distinct, self-supporting unit of interacting organisms and their surrounding environment. For example, a forest is an ecosystem its physical boundaries are the areas where the trees give way to other types of vegetation. Set up your ecosystem and make initial observations Materials: 1. 4 wooden sticks Meter stick String thermometer Shovel Plastic bag for soil sample Plastic bag for water sample, if necessary Camera After gathering materials, your group will pick out a meter square area ecosystem. You will measure out the area with the meter stick and rope off the boundary with string and wooden sticks. 2. Take several pictures of your ecosystem (each group member must have at least one picture in their report. 3. Make initial observations of your ecosystems. These observations should include all living and non-living things. Describe the location, what areas surround your ecosystem, what is the temperature; investigate hidden places in your ecosystem. 4. Take a soil sample and/or water sample in your ecosystem. Empty the bag on a sheet of newspaper. Probe through the soil and look for hidden organisms. List the organism and record the approximate numbers of each type of organism. 5. Questions 1. Consider the variety of living and non-living things in your ecosystem. Which was the largest population? 2. How are the survival needs of your organisms being met in your ecosystem? Air? Food? Water? Sunlight? 3. What are other organisms could survive in your ecosystem. Think of organisms that could not. Part 3: How is an ecosystem organized? Levels of organization in your ecosystem Read the definitions of the species, population, community, and ecosystem from this website: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/9d.html Habitat is where a population lives. Describe the habitat of your population. Niche is the relational position of population in its ecosystem to each other. A niche describes how a population responds to different resources or competitors. For example, two groups of dolphins may be in two different niches depending on how the two niches compete for food and other needed resources. Two different populations cannot occupy the same niche at the same time. If that should happen, then the processes of competition, predation, cooperation and symbiosis will occur. Habitat- an area where an organism lives Niche- full range of physical and biological conditions in which an organism lives and the way in which the organism uses those conditions. Includes where in the food chain it is, where an organism feeds Habitat is like an address in an ecosystem and a niche is like an occupation in an ecosystem. Questions: Identify one species in your ecosystem. Explain why it is a species. Identify a population in your ecosystem. Explain why it is a population. Explain why your ecosystem is an ecosystem. How might your ecosystem change? Describe the niche of your population. This description should be very different from your habitat answer. Part 4: What are biotic and abiotic systems in an ecosystem? Make a list of your abiotic and biotic factors that may affect a population in your ecosystem. Questions: What two factors are necessary in order to identify an area as an ecosystem? How might some these factors affect your population in your ecosystem? Part 5: How do organisms obtain the essential and life-sustaining materials? All organisms need certain chemicals in order to live. Chief among these are water, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. Organisms use these substances in the molecules that supply nutrients and make up the materials of their bodies. When an organism dies, these chemical materials are returned to the earth and the atmosphere. Other organisms then take up and use these same chemicals. The continuous movement of chemical throughout the ecosystem is called recycling. The pathway through which a chemical substance is recycled is it biogeochemical cycle. Water cycle: http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/watercycle/ How is water recycled in your ecosystem? Explain the cycle and how it works in your ecosystem Carbon cycle: http://www.nodvin.net/snhu/SCI219/demos/Chapter_3/Chapter_03/Present/animations/51_1_2_1.ht ml How is carbon recycled in your ecosystem? Explain the cycle and how it works in your ecosystem Nitrogen cycle: http://www.classzone.com/books/ml_science_share/vis_sim/em05_pg20_nitrogen/em05_pg20_nitrog en.html How is nitrogen recycled in your ecosystem? Explain the cycle and how it works in your ecosystem. What is the role of decomposers in the nitrogen cycle? Why are cycles important? Part 6: How is energy transferred in an ecosystem? Individual organisms within a biotic community survive either by producing food or by feeding on other organisms. Plants, the chief producers, make food by the process known as photosynthesis. This food may be consumed by animals. Food energy thus moves from one organism to another. The process of the transfer of energy is not haphazard, however. It is part of an organized system of energy flow throughout the ecosystem. http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/102/ecosystem.html#Energyflowthroughtheecosystem3 Create a food chain that might be present in your ecosystem. Create a food web that might be present in your ecosystem. Create an ecological pyramid for your ecosystem and explain your reasoning behind the drawing. http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/fancher/TrophicPyramids.htm Questions: What role do decomposers have in the energy flow in ecosystem? Where does the energy come from for your ecosystem? What ultimately happens to energy in your ecosystem? What is the difference between a food chain and food web? Part 7: How do the species in an ecosystem interact? All organisms must live side by side with many other organisms. The evolutionary process has shaped ecosystems so that each ecosystem’s organisms constantly interact with on another. Many different kinds of interactions exist among the organisms in an ecosystem. The result is a dynamic system that supports each population’s requirements for natural resources. http://staff.tuhsd.k12.az.us/gfoster/standard/bbiotic.htm Describe the following and give an example from your ecosystem if possible: Predation: (predator and prey) Mutualism: Commensalism: Parasitism: Question: How do competition, predation, and symbiosis differ? Part 8: How does an ecosystem develop? Just as individual organisms grow and change with time, so do the ecological communities of the earth on which we live. A community is a group of different types of organisms that coexist. Such communities replace, or succeed, each other in predictable, orderly, way. The process or replacement is call ecological succession. http://nsm1.nsm.iup.edu/rwinstea/succession.shtm http://www.morning-earth.org/graphic-e/Transf-Success.htm http://envirosci.net/111/succession/succession.htm Questions 1. Compare primary succession and secondary succession. 2. What is a climax community? 3. What is the ecological role of weeds? 4. How does secondary succession proceed in an abandoned farm field? 5. If there was a fire and burned everything in your ecosystem, explain how your ecosystem would change? Please make sure the steps are included. Part 9: What factors affect the growth of a population? Some populations are made up of less than a dozen individuals. Others are composed of millions, even billions of individuals. Every population has a specific potential for growth and it subject to environmental pressures that control how fast it grows and how large it can be. Textbook: Pages 90-99 Questions: 1. Give four examples of limiting factors that control population growth. 2. Compare a J-curve and a S-curve. 3. What is the difference between density-independent factors and density-dependent factors? 4. Explain the five phrases of a predictable pattern of population growth. Use an example of population in your ecosystem. General websites to help you http://www.phschool.com/science/ca_sci_exp_transparencies/earth_sci_unit5.pdf http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ecosystem?topic=58074#gen3