Plant and Animal Characteristics

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Plant and Animal Characteristics
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Plants

• Hydrophytes- high water needs- cattails
• poor root systems, easily obtain water
• Mesophytes- average water needs- yards and
  gardens
• Complexed roots, wide and spread out
• Absorb and store water quickly

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Plants

• Xerophytes- low water needs- desert plants
• Leaves are thorns, little need for
  photosynthesis
• Water stored in stem
• Very little transpiration

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Animals

• Terrestrial- land animals
• Wetter than surroundings
• Continuous sweating or transpiration
• Water moves from a greater volume to lower volume

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Animals

• Aquatic- lives in water
• Drier than surroundings
• Water comes in on a continuous basis
• Very efficient kidneys to maintain water
• Marine- live in salt water
• Salt takes water from body
• Have salt glands in gills and excrete salt back
  into the environment

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Nutritional Relationship

• Carnivores- sharp teeth, eat quickly
• Able to maintain stomach acid
• Herbivores- eats woody plants
• Omnivores- eats both plants and animals
• Scavengers- eats dead stuff, good sense of smell

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Nutritional Relationship

• Decomposers- mold, mildew, bacteria
• Important for forest and tropical rain forests
• Breaks down wastes to simpler and smaller
  molecules
• Transformers- bacteria
• Breakdown material to even smaller molecules
• Saprophytes- fungi part of decomposers

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Food Webs

• Autotrophy- make their own food- plants
• Heterothrophs-1st and 2nd order consumers
• 1st order- herbivores
• 2nd and 3rd order- carnivores and omnivores
• Saprophytes- bacterial, mold, fungi

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Food Pyramids
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Food Pyramids
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Food Pyramids
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Food Pyramids