Ecology 1

Vocab

• Population : Group of the same species living in the same area 

• Predation: Interaction in which one organism, the predator, eats all or part of the body of another organism, the prey

• Competition: The direct or indirect interaction of organisms that leads to a change in fitness when the organisms share the same resource.

• Abiotic Factor. any nonliving factor in an organisms environment such as soil, water temperature, and light availability.
  

Population stages

• Slow growth: The population is slow to adapt to a particular environment

• Exponential growth High birth rates due to natural selection & resources

• Carrying capacity: the greatest number of individuals that the environment can sustain

• A population can stabilize or crash 

Community

• Defined: group of species living in the same area

• Habit: place where an organism lives

• Each organism has its own HABITAT

• Each species has its own NICHE

  • Niche: The role/ needs of a species 

Ecosystem

• Defined: All the living & non-living things in a given area

• Biotic(living) Factors: 

  • Animals, Plants, Fungi, Bacteria, Protista

• Abiotic( non-living)Factors: 

  • Rocks, Climate, soil, water, etc

• Patterns? 

  •  Biotic affected by the abiotic 

  • Abiotic affected by the biotic 

• Keystone Species:  A species with an unusually large effect on the ecosystem 

  Biomes

• Defined: Large area with distinct climate, plant, and animal life

  • Taiga

  • Deserts

  • Tundra 

  • Rainforests 

  • Deciduous forests 

  • Grasslands

• Pattern: Climate determines where life can survive. 

Biosphere

Defined: Area of the Earth where life can be found 

• Highest: 12km( 7.4mi) above sea level

• Deepest: 11km (6.8mi)  below sea level below sea level 

Pattern: Biosphere changes can affect life

• Ex: More CO2 in the atmosphere…. Causes warmer temperatures

Trophic Levels: 

• Energy flow in an ecosystem

Energy Enters the Ecosystem

• All energy in the ecosystem comes from the sun

• First law of Thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed (but it can be transformed into stored energy (glucose) & heat)

• The second law of thermodynamics is that energy is lost as energy is transformed. 

• Energy can also leave an ecosystem 

• When energy is transformed it seems to be lost but it just turns into heat.

Energy Paths

3 ways to illustrate energy flow

• 1. Food Chain: Single Path 

• 2. Food Web: Many Paths 

• 3. Food pyramid 

Food Chain

• A food chain shows the path of energy from one organism to another

• Energy flows from producers to consumers

•  Arrows point to who is eating(plant is eaten by herbivores) (Usually, decomposers are left out)

• Phytoplankton(500joules) (producer)  -> Zooplankton(50joules) (Primary consumer) -> tuna(5joules) (eats the zoo)  -> shark (0.5joules) (tertiary consumer, eats the tuna)

Vocab

• Joules - a form of energy 

• Autotrophic- Creates their food

• Heterotroph- gets food by eating other organisms 

Species Interactions

• Habitat: A habitat can be described as all of the biotic and abiotic factors in the area where an organism lives.

• Riparian:  relating to or situated on the banks of a river.

Competition

• Results from fundamental niche overlap

• Two or more species use the same limited resource

  •  Competitive exclusion: one species is eliminated from the community

  • Interspecific Competition

    • Occurs when two different species compete for a limited resource 

  • Intraspecific competition

    • When members of the same species compete for limited resources. 

Competition and Community Structure

• Resource partitioning

  • A pattern of resource use in which species reduce their use of shared resources

Competition and Community Structure

• Character Displacement 

  • Evolution of anatomical differences that reduce competition 

• Between similar species

• Example: Beak Size in finches 

Predestination

• When one organism hunts and kills another organism for food. 

• Predator 

• Captures, kills, and consumes another individual 

  Prey

Adaptations for Predators

• Rattlesnakes have acute-smelling and heat-sensitive pits

Adaptations for Prey

• Poisonous and warm predators with bright colors

  • Poison dart frog

• Mimicry: A harmless species resembles a poisonous or distasteful one 

• Camouflage

Herbivory

• The state or condition of feeding on plants

• Any organism that eats plants is an herbivore

Adaptations of plants

• Physical defenses

  • Sharp thorns, spines, sticky hairs, tough leaves

• Chemical defenses(secondary compounds)

Symbiosis

Defined:living together when two organisms react to each other

  3-types of symbiosis 

• Parasitism

• Mutualism

• commensalism 

Parasitism(+/–)

• One organism is harmed (the host) while the other organism benefits (the parasite)

• Usually does not result in death 

• Two types         

  • Ectoparasites (external)

  • Endoparasites(internal)

• Parasites have many adaptations 

Commensalism (+/0)

• Interaction in which one species benefits; the other is neither helped nor harmed

  • Shark and Remora

Mutualism(+/+)

• The term mutualism can be simply defined as a relationship in which both species are mutually benefited.

Ecology II

Vocab

• Biomes- living landscapes of earth

• Topography - Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces.

• Main biomes groupings

  • Trees

  • Shrubs 

  • Grasses 

  • Arid Adaptations

  • Cold adaptations 

    • Angiosperms are found in all these biomes

• Biomes are the adaptations of plants

• Same climate types but all are isolated from each other

• Pine trees can be found in the subarctic and tropic 

• Types of soil affect biomes: 

  • Clay 

  • silt, 

  • and others

Biomes

Vocab

Biomes- living landscapes of earth

Topography - Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces.

• Main biomes groupings

  • Trees

  • Shrubs 

  • Grasses 

  • Arid Adaptations

  • Cold adaptations 

    • Angiosperms are found in all these biomes

• Biomes are the adaptations of plants

• Same climate types but all are isolated from each other

• Pine trees can be found in the subarctic and tropic 

• Types of soil affect biomes: 

  • Clay 

  • silt, 

  • and other shi

Biome Classifications

Evapotranspiration 

LONS08- Sellers work

Types of Biomes 

tropical rainforest

tropical dry forest

tropical savanna

Desert 

temperate grassland, 

temperate woodland 

Shrubland

temperate forest

northwestern coniferous forest

boreal forest 

Tundra

Deciduous forest - characterized by trees that lose their leaves

Amoeba Sisters-

Ecological succession: Process over time of organisms in an ecological community.

Organism(middle), Population, Community

Primary succession: Primary succession is the beginning step of ecological succession after an extreme disturbance, which usually occurs in an environment devoid of vegetation and other organisms.

pioneer species: species that will colonize an area first

• Ex. Plants in Hawaii that broke down volcanos

Competition for space

• Ex: As trees get larger they can block the sunlight for other smaller plants

Secondary Succession:  Secondary succession is the secondary ecological succession of a plant's life.

Secondary Succession is when a stable climax community has extreme disturbance which destroys everything and grows everything back

Phosphorus cycle is when phosphorus is removed from inorganic compounds and then put back into waterways.

Exponential growth is a pattern of growth  

• Soil is there 

• Faster process than primary succession

Biogeochemical Cycles

How do nutrients cycle the environment?

Biogeochemical cycles Cycles in which water and minerals are recycled and reused by moving from the nonliving portion of the environment into living things and back again.

• Carbon (oxygen) cycle

• Nitrogen cycle

• Water cycle 

• Phosphorus Cycle

Carbon Cycle Photosynthesis, combustion, cellular respiration and decomposition

• Starting with atmospheric carbon dioxide, the carbon cycle begins with plants and another autotroph. Absorbing CO2 and converting it into usable sugars and starches.

  • This process is known as photosynthesis

• Animals then eat this vegetation

• They break down the sugars & starches made by plants and convert them into ATP. 

• In that process, they release CO2 back into the atmosphere

• All life eventually dies 

• When it does it is broken down, decays, and collects as fossil fuels. 

• The burning of fossil fuels is called combustion and releases CO2 back into the atmosphere.

Nitrogen Cycle 

Diatomic - two atoms

• Nitrogens, another essential element, must also be cycled. 

• The Atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen gas, N2. But most organisms cannot use nitrogen gas

• The nitrogen cycle is all about getting the nitrogen in the atmosphere into forms that can be used by organisms 

• Recall that nitrogens are used for 

  • Amino acids of protein

1. Nitrogen fixations- First Step, bacteria convert nitrogen gas, N2, into ammonia, NH3

• Nitrogen-fixing bacteria live in the soil and on the roots of some plants. 

2. Ammonification - Second step, Nitrogen from animal waste or decaying bodies is returned to the soil as ammonia by bacteria and decomposers. 

• Ammonification - making ammonia from different compounds

3. Nitrification- Third Step, Ammonia NH3 is converted to Nitrite NO2, Nitrate NO3

4. Assimilation - Fourth Step, is the process in which plants absorb nitrogens. When an animal eats a plant, nitrogen compounds become part of the animal's body. 

 5. Denitrification - Nitrate, NO3 is changed to nitrogen gas N2 which returns to the atmosphere

Water Cycle 

The water cycle continuously moves water between the atmosphere, the land, and the oceans

Phosphorus cycle 

• Phosphorus is often found in soil and rock as calcium phosphate, which dissolves in water to form phosphate.

• The roots of plants absorb phosphate  

• The phosphorus cycle is the movement of phosphorus in different chemical forms from the surroundings to the organism and then back to the surroundings. 

• Need in DNA and ATP 

Population Ecology video:

• Population ecology is the study of how a species interacts with each other

• Community Ecology is the study of how different species interact with each other

•  Density- how many organisms are in a set area 

  • mosquitos in Texas

• Dispersion -  the pattern of distribution of individuals within a habitat.

  • Clumped Dispersion (pigs getting slop/animals fighting over food) 

  • Uniform distribution (orange grove each tree has an even space to grow)

Random Distribution (literally just random)

West Nile outbreak 

Population growth-

Fecundity- 

Mosquitoes can have 2000 offspring

Immigration- Moving into a country 

Emigration- Exiting from a country 

• (Limiting Factors) - anything that threatens a population

  • Food

  • Temperature

  • Mates

  • Space

  • Disease/sickness

  • Natural disaster 

• Density Dependent - depends on the individuals. when needs aren’t met like food/limiting factors 

• Density independent - population affected by something sudden like a volcano eruption 

Mosquitoes are ectothermic which means cold-blooded animals.

Endothermic- warm-blooded

Ectothermic- Cold-blooded animals

Population Ecology- where you look at groups of different organisms living together and figure out how they influence each other.

ECOSYSTEM ECOLOGY: the study of how all living and nonliving things interact within an entire ecosystem.

DENSITY:  A population's density changes due to several factors, all of which are pretty intuitive.

BORN OR IMMIGRATE:  and it decreases because of deaths or emigration, or individuals moving out.

DEATHS & EMIGRATION:  Simple enough, but as a population ecologist, you also need to know about the geographic arrangement of the individuals within the population.

DISPERSION:  Are they evenly spaced across the county? Is there some kind of random spacing?

R = take the number of births- death/population size (N) 

Immigration - moving into 

Emigration - Leaving one place and going to another (Exiting)

Demography

Demography- the study of statistics of human populations, such as births, deaths, incomes, or the incidence of disease, which illustrate the changing structure. 

Things that are interesting- 

• 43 live without proper sanitation

• 20 people with 75% of the money 

• Logistical