Principles of Ecology Chapter 13 & 14

Ecology

Relations among organisms and their interactions with their environment is known as Ecology. 

Biodiversity: term used to describe the variety of life found on Earth.



Individual = 1 Species
Population = Many of the same speices
Community = Different populations (Biotic Factor = living)
Ecosystem = Various populations along with abiotic factors (non-living) coexisting.
Biome = Many ecosystems (Tundra, Tropical Rain Forest, Desert, etc...)
Biosphere =  Many biomes

 

Biotic vs Abiotic

Abiotic Factors are non-living. Ex: rocks, soil, water, wind, temp.
Biotic Factors are any living. Ex: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Bacteria, and Protists.

Producers = get their energy and produce their own food by use of non-living resources. They are also called autotrophs.

Some organisms use chemicals to make their own food. This is called chemosynthesis.

Consumers = organisms get their energy from living or once living resources such as plants, animals, fungi, bacteria. They are also called heterotrophs.

There are 4 Types of Consumers

• Herbivore = organisms that only eat plants

• Carnivore = organisms that only eat meat

• Omnivore = organisms that eat both plants and meat.

• Decomposers /Detritivores = organisms that eat decaying matter and recycle it back to the environment.

Quiz on Intro to Ecology

Law of Conservation of Energy
Energy can not be created or destroyed it can only be transferred from one form to another.

Our Sun is our source of energy. It provides direct and indirect energy to all life on earth.

What would happen to the population of snakes if the cricket population decreased?

What about the owl population? 

In Ecology we see interactions among populations mainly through Food Chains and Food Webs

Food Chains show how the organisms are related with each other by the food they eat. The arrow indicates the direction energy travels. They are very simple.





Food Webs are a combinations of Food Chains interacting with one another. They are very complex.

Food Chain Video



Only a 10% of energy is transferred from organism to organism while the rest is lost to heat. TEN PERCENT RULE



Each organism in an environment can be placed in what is known as a Trophic Level, usually represented as a pyramid.

In a Trophic Level Pyramid each level symbolizes a level of nourishment in a food chain.











Biomass Pyramids indicate how much of a certain organism there is in a specific area. Producers occupy most of the land biomass.

Many times certain areas can only sustain so much life. This is known as Carrying Capacity (how much capacity a certain area can sustain). 

So when population of consumers increase there are changes in the environment that can lead to deaths in populations until order is restored.

Carrying Capacity

BrainPop Energy Pyramid


Food Fight

Carbon Cycle

Nitrogen Cycle

Water Cycle

Organisms interact with their environment differently. Within a certain ecosystem, organisms tend to occupy their own space called a niche.

A habitat is a place organism lives and a niche is how an organism lives within a habitat.

There are 3 factors that are included in a niche:
1. Food = the type of food it eats, how it competes with others for food, and where in the food web it falls into.
2. Abiotic Conditions = temp. and water a organism can tolerate.
3. Behavior = when the organism is active

Sometimes organisms occupying different niches will compete for food and drive other out of their area.
There are 2 ways organisms interact with each other and their environment.
1. Competition: each compete for resources.
2. Predation: organisms hunting and killing others for nutrients.

Battle at Kruger

Some prey upon others in different niches when hunting. This is called predation, the act of preying upon another organism with the intent to kill and eat it.

Other organisms will interact with each other in a process known as known as symbiosis.

There are 3 forms of 
Symbiotic Relationships:

1. Mutualism = (mutual) both organisms benefit from the relationship. Ex: Bees and flowers.

2. Parasitism: (parasite) one organism benefits while the other gets harmed in the process. Some parasites ultimately kill the host. Ex: leech and ticks.

3. Commensalism: one organism benefits while the other is no affected or  not bothered. Ex: Sharks and remora.

Review Video

Succession: is a sequence of changes that recreates a damaged community or creates a new community in an area that was not inhabited before.

There are 2 types of succession:

Primary Succession: This type of succession might begin on cooled lava, after a volcano erupts or it might begin on bare rock that is exposed when a glacier melts. May take longer to develop a habitat.

Secondary Succesion: is the regrowth of a damaged ecosystem in an area that still has healthy soil. Restores the habitat much faster.

Chapter 19 Protists & Fungi

A protist is a eukaryote that is not an animal, a plant, or a fungus. They are found in the Domain Eukarya, Kindom

However, Protists can be animal-like, plant-like or fungus-like.

Euplote

The many groups of animal-like protists are often called protozoa. Animal-like protists like the Euplotes are heterotrophs; organisms that consume other organisms, all animal-like protists are single-celled, while all animals—no matter how simple—are multicellular 

a.) Cilia, are short, hairlike structures on the cell surface. Cilia help an organism to move and capture food. 

b.) Some protozoa move by changing shape, and forming pseudopods. A pseudopod


c.) flagella are tail-like structures that help single-celled organisms move. 

Some Protists that below to the genus Plasmodium cause disease like the Human Malaria.

Photosynthetic plantlike protists are called algae  such as the Pediastrum seen to the right. Although these protists do not have roots, stems, leaves or other plant tissue they do have have chloroplasts. Plantlike protists may be either single celled, colonial, or multi cellular

Funguslike protists, such as slime molds or water molds, decompose dead organisms. 

Slime molds are protists that have both funguslike and animal-like traits. They are common on dead leaves and under logs.Water molds are protists that are made of branching strands of cells. They are common in freshwater habitats. Many water molds are decomposers, but some are parasites of plants or fish. 

Fungi  eukaryotic organisms that get food by breaking down organic matter and absorbing the nutrients, reproduce by means of spores, and have no means of movement.

fungal cell walls are made of a substance called chitin (KYT-uhn) this substance is also found in the shells of insects, but is not found in plants

• Primitive fungi The simplest type of fungi are called the primitive fungi. Most live in the water and have spores with flagella that help them to move. 
• Sac fungi These fungi all form a sac that contains spores for reproduction. The yeasts that are used to make bread rise and as the source of the antibiotic penicillin are both sac fungi. 

• Bread molds Most bread molds get their food by decomposing dead or decaying organic matter. However, at least one group of bread molds gets food through a symbiotic relationship. Mycorrhizae (my-kuh-RY-zuh) are fungi that live in a mutualistic relationship with the roots of certain plants. These fungi change nitrogen into a form that plants can use. The plant gets usable nitrogen. The fungus gets food and a place to live. 

• Club fungi These fungi have fruiting bodies shaped like clubs. This group includes mushrooms, rusts and smuts, which are two types of fungi that cause diseases in plants. 

Mycorrhizae (my-kuh-RY-zuh) are fungi that live in a mutualistic relationship with the roots of certain plants.  

• Fungi reproduce sexually and asexually.

• They reproduce asexually by producing spores in sporangia, which are spore-forming structures at the tips of their hyphae.

• Other forms of asexual reproduction include budding. 

**Sexual reproduction of a fungi occurs when two mating cells from hyphae of different strains of fungi can mate by 

fusing together  and forming a spore stalk.

•  Fungi as Decomposers, they can break down dead material, such as leaves, wood, and animals. Through decomposition, fungi return nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and minerals back into the soil. 

A lichen (LY-kuhn) is a mutualistic relationship between a fungus and algae or photosynthetic bacteria.

• Some fungi can be pathogens, or organisms that cause disease. Fungi can cause disease in animals, including humans. For example, fungi cause athlete’s foot and ringworm.

• Fungi as Mutualists, Some insects also have mutualisms with fungi. A certain type of ant that lives in Central and South America, called the leafcutter ant, actually grows fungi in a type of garden.