What is Ecology?

1. What is Ecology? • The study of the interactions between organisms and their environment • Interactions between organisms is not simply who eats who but varied, some good some bad

2. Organism Populations Communities Ecosystems Biomes Biosphere Single animal Group of the same animal Different populations in the same area Includes the abiotic factors Geographic area characterized by certain types of plant and animal communities Earth where life exists Organization in the Environment

4. 2 parts of ecology • Biotic factors • The living part of the environment • Animals, plants, insects, humans • Abiotic factors • The non-living part of the environment • Water, soil, light, temperature

6. Habitat vs. Niche • Habitat – the environment in which an organism lives • When things like deforestation, building of roads and buildings occur, habitats are being destroyed • Niche – organisms way of life in the ecosystem • Includes its habitat, food, predators, competitors and abiotic factors

7. Niche of the Gray Wolf • Consumers • Carnivores, eating moose, deer, reindeer, sheep and small animals such as birds and snakes • Social Structure – hunt in packs • Nurture and teach their young • Important in population control

8. Producers • Make their own food/energy • Use the sun to go through the process of photosynthesis • Includes plants, algae and some bacteria

9. Consumers • Can’t make their own energy, get it by eating producers or other consumers • Herbivore – eats only plants • Carnivore – eats only animals • Omnivores – eats both plants and animals

10. Scavenger vs. Decomposer • Scavengers eat dead animals for energy • Examples include turkey vultures • Decomposers get energy by breaking down the remains of dead organisms • Recyclers, bacteria and fungi

12. Predation • Prey – the organism that is eaten • Predator – the organism doing the eating • Adaptations • Predator – speed or ambush prey • Prey – run away, camouflage, poisonous, bright colors, groups

14. Competition • Can occur among individuals within a population or between populations • Competition for resources, mates, space

15. Symbiosis • Long term, association between two or more species

16. Mutualism • Both organisms benefit

17. One organism is benefiting and the other is unaffected Commensalism

18. One organism is harmed and the other is benefiting Parasitism

19. Limiting factors • Populations cannot grow indefinitely because the environment contains only so much food, water, living space and other resources • When one or more becomes scarce, it becomes a limiting factor

20. Carrying Capacity • The largest population that a given environment can support over a long period of time • When the population gets larger than carrying capacity, limiting factors will cause the population to get smaller

22. Coevolution • Long term change that takes place in two species because of their close interactions with each other • Herbivores evolving with the plants they eat • Flowers and their pollinators

23. Food Chains • Represent how energy flows from one organism to the next • Rare in nature because animals usually eat more than one organism

24. Food Webs • More common • Show the many pathways that energy flows in an ecosystem

25. Represents the loss of energy by each organism in a food chain or web Energy Pyramids