Topic 12

The concepts of ecology and economy are linked

Resource management, “economy”

Ecology - the study of interactions between organisms and their environment

Organismal ecology- how an individual organism’s structure, physiology, and behavior meet environmental challenges

Population ecology- how populations change through time and what factors affect population

Community ecology- how species interactions such as predation and competition, affect community structure and organization

Ecosystem ecology- how energy flows and chemicals cycle between organisms and their environment

Landscape ecology- how factors controlling exchanges of energy, materials, and organisms occurs across multiple ecosystems

Global ecology- how regional exchange of energy and materials influences the functioning and distribution of organisms across biospheres

Ecosystem- the bionic community and its abiotic surroundings

The environment has consequences at ecological and evolution timescales

Ecology = proximate, environment affects population size, population, growth, distribution

Evolution = ultimate, environment (abiotic and biotic) is the cause of natural selection

Abiotic factors affect the distribution of and selection on organisms

Climate vs. weather

Long-term conditions of temperature, precipitation, evaporation, and light

Short term patterns of these factors

How many abiotic factors affect plants and animals?

Climate drives plant productivity

Productivity is limited by evapotranspiration (influences by temperature and precipitation)

Evapotranspiration species richness in plants and animals

How does climate affect environments at a global scale?

Distribution of biomes

Biomes

Pattern of biomes are regulated by global atmospheric circulation

Names for dominant vegetation (plant communities)

• characterized by climatological features

• inhabited by animals, plants, microorganisms

What contributes to the distribution of biomes?

Solar radiation, warms atmosphere, land, and water

• solar radiation most intense when the sun is overhead

• tropics, areas w sun directly over head

• tropics receive most solar radiation and least seasonal radiation

What contributes to the distribution og biomes? Extent of variation during the year—seasons

• earth at a 23.5 degree tilt

What contributes to the distribution of biomes? Sun at equator generates global air circulation

• intense solar radiation near equator initials global patterns of air circulation

• differential heating of eathers surface leads to global circulation patterns

• - rising air at equator

• subsiding air around 30 degress

• -high pressure zone

Low pressure zones

• warm, moist air rises and cools as it gains altitude

  • forms clouds

  • greater precipitation

High pressure systems

• warm, and any moisture in air is trapped at surface

  • less cloud formation

  • less precipitation

Where are the major biomes found?

There are two types of deserts

Typical desert

• drought resistant vegetation

• relatively hot

Polar desert

• no vegetation or little

• cold

Temperate forests

Tropical rain forests

Grasslands

Taiga

• dominated by coniferous tress and characterized by low temperatures

Climate changes

El nino, la nina cycles

Within biomes, we often have variation in climates

Large water bodies affect climate on a regional scale

• water heats and cools more slowly than land

  • differences in temperature convection currents

Why is there a desert in the middle of the taiga?

Rain shadow—a regional effect

• moist air moving over water to over land

• air must rise to go over mountain range

• at it rises, it cools causing heavy precipitation on the windward side of the mountain