Ecology

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Ecology
The study of the interactions that take place
among organisms and their environment
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Aspects of Ecological Study
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Biosphere

• The part of Earth that supports life
• Top portion of Earth's crust
• All the waters that cover Earth's surface
• Atmosphere that surrounds Earth.

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Abiotic Factors

• Are nonliving factors of an environment.
• Abiotoic Factors include amount of water and
  oxygen, temperature, light, and soil.

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Biotic Factors

• Are the living factors of an environment.

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Levels of Organization in Ecology
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Ecosystem

• All the organisms living in an area and the
  nonliving features of their environment
• Types
• Terrestrial land (forest, meadow, desert)
• Aquatic water (pond, lake, stream, ocean)

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However..

• An ecosystem can be as large as the Sahara
  Desert, or as small as a puddle, or one tree in
  the rainforest!!!

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Ex. Pond Ecosystem
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Population

• All the organisms in an ecosystem that belong to
  the same species

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Community

• All the interacting populations in an ecosystem

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Habitat

• The place in which an organism lives
• provides the kinds of food and shelter, the
  temperature, and the amount of moisture the
  organism needs to survive

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Niche

• Is the role and position a species has in its
  environment (how it meets its needs for survival)
• Example see the soil ecosystem on pages 44-45 in
  textnote each organisms role and how it uses the
  resources in its own way to survive

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Living Relationships
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Symbiosis

• Relationship in which there is a close and
  permanent association among organisms of
  different species
• Examples Commensalism, Mutualism, Parasitism

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Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Commensalism

• Symbiotic Relationship in which one species
  benefits and the other species is neither harmed
  nor benefited

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Ex. Clownfish protected by anemoneanemone not
harmed or helped
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Ex. Spider Crab hitches a ride from jellyfish
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Mutualism

• A symbiotic relationship in which both species
  benefit

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• Ex. Ants protect acacia tree by attacking any
  animal that tries to feed on ittree provides
  nectar and home for ants

Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Parasitism

• A type of interspecific interaction where one
  species (the host) is harmed at least in some way
  by the other (the parasite).

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Tapeworm
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Dog hookworm
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Filariasis (Elephantiasis) caused by parasitic
worm
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Fleas
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Lice
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Ticks
Photo from Dr. Todd Huspeni Animal
Parasitology UW-Stevens Point
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Learning Targets

• Students will be able to demonstrate how energy
  transfers through food webs
• Students will be able to define and give examples
  of producers and consumers

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Box Jellyfish

• Live off of Northern Australia in Great Barrier
  Reef and in Indo-Pacific
• Very powerful venom among most deadly in world
• Can be fatal to humans and survivors will have
  pain for months and permanent scars from
  tentacles
• Up to 15 tentacles grow from each corner, and
  tentacles can be up to 3 meters in length!
• Stinging not activated by touch, but by chemical
  contained on prey
• Have eye clusters, but lack a central nervous
  system, so scientists dont yet understand how
  they see
• Sea turtles are unaffected by the sting of the
  jellyfish and regularly eat them
• Average lifespan less than 1 year

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How Organisms Obtain Energy
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The Producers Autotrophs

• Organisms that use energy from the sun or
  chemical compounds to make their own nutrients
  (photosynthesis)

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Water carbon dioxide ? glucose
oxygen 6H2O 6CO2 ?
C6H12O6 6O2

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The Consumers Heterotrophs

• Organisms that cannot make their own food and
  must feed on other organisms

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Consumers- 5 Types

• Herbivores - primary consumer eat plants only
• Carnivores - higher level consumers eat other
  animals

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Consumers 5 Types

• Omnivores - can fit in at any consumer level
  eat both plants and animals
• Decomposers - break down dead organisms
• Scavengers - eat dead animals

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Food Chain

• A food chain is a simple model of the feeding
  relationship in an ecosystem.

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Food Chain

• For example, shrubs are food for deer, and deer
  are food for mountain lions.

The mountain lion is the second organism of the
food chain. It eats the deer. It is the
secondary consumer.
Because shrubs make their own food through
photosynthesis, they are called producers.
The deer is the first organism of the food chain
to eat the shrub. It is the primary consumer.
Shrubs are the beginning of the food chain. They
receive their energy from sunlight.
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Food Chain
Algae make their own food from sunlight. They
are the basis for the food chain in this example.
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Generalized Food Web of the Antarctic
Note Arrows Go in direction Of energy flow
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http//www.youtube.com/watch?vsbWyrcY5i3s
Food Webs

• Food Webs are Food Chains that intersect each
  other. Food webs are what really happens in
  nature.
• Nowlets do an activity!!
• Grab a textbook and turn to page 53 (1 book per
  table)a little background music for you while
  you get books

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Food Web Activity

• Each group gets a deck of food web cards,
  whiteboard, and marker
• Lay out the cards on the whiteboard, arrange them
  into a potential food web
• Add 5 organisms of your own to the web
• Connect the webs with the arrows
• Label the autotrophs and heterotrophs
• For each heterotroph ID carnivore, herbivore,
  omnivore, decomposer, scavenger

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Where do decomposers fit in food chains?
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Trophic Level

• Each Organism in a food chain represents a
  feeding step in the passage of energy and
  materials

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How does energy transfer in a food chain?

• 10 rule
• Each organism at a trophic level loses energy
  from its food through waste and metabolic
  processes. Only 10 of the energy is used for
  growth and passed on to the next level of the
  food chain

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Max Number of Trophic Levels

• 3 4
• Why?
• Only 10 of energy gets passed on, so energy
  dwindles away quickly
• Mouse eats grass gets 10 energy
• Snake eats mouse gets 10 of 10 1
• Hawk eats snake gets 10 of 1 0.1

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Energy Pyramid
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Energy Pyramid

• The bars are drawn in proportion to the total
  energy utilized at each trophic

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Pyramid of Numbers
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Pyramid of Numbers

• A bar diagram that indicates the relative numbers
  of organisms at each trophic level in a food
  chain.
• The length of each bar gives a measure of the
  relative numbers.

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Pyramid of Biomass
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Pyramid of Biomass

• As pyramids of number but uses dry mass of all
  organisms at each trophic level.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vTE6wqG4nb3M
• Music review

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Does anything else transfer in a food chain?

• Toxins (heavy metals, DDT, PCBs) stored in the
  fat of organisms
• Bioaccumulation accumulation of toxic chemicals
  in the tissue of an organism

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• Biomagnification increase in concentration of a
  pollutant from the environment to the first
  organism and subsequent organisms in a food chain
• The higher the animal is on the food chain, the
  higher the concentration of toxins

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DDT Problem

• Background of DDT
• DDT is a pesticide used for mosquito control and
  pest control in agricultural crops.
• DDT accumulation in some bird species resulted in
  death, nervous system damage, and reproductive
  failure.
• As a result DDT was banned in the United States
  in 1972.

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DDT is broken down by organism and stored in fat
Damage decrease population

• Reproductive failure (in birds/eagles- eggshell
  thinning)
• Immune system problems
• Nervous system damage
• Death

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Bioaccumulation Factor

• The concentration of a chemical/toxin in tissue
  divided by its concentration in the diet