Reporting Category 4: Environment

1. Reporting Category 4:Environment Ecosystems and relationships

2. Ecosystem: • All the living and non-living things that interact in an area.

3. Niche: • An organisms role or how it “fits into” an ecosystem. • A niche includes the type of food it eats, how it gets the food, which other species (animals) eat the organism. • A niche also includes when and how the organism reproduces and the physical conditions it requires to survive.

4. Three major types of interactions among organisms: • Competition- struggle to survive in the habitat • Predation- hunt and kill (predator-prey) • Symbiosis- close relationship between two species that benefits at least on of the species.

5. Three types of symbiotic relationships: • Mutualism- both species benefit. Ex. Cactus and bats The bat benefits because the cactus flower provides the bat with food. The cactus benefits as the pollen from the flower is carried on the bat’s nose to another plant.

6. Commensalism: • On species benefits and the other species is neither helped nor harmed. Ex. Red-tailed hawk and the cactus The red-tailed hawk uses the cactus as a place to build its nest. The cactus is not affected by the birds. Not very common in Nature

7. Parasitism: • One organism living on or inside another organism and harming it. • The organism that benefits is the parasite. • The organism that is harmed is the host. • Ex. Flea and dog