Interactions of Living Things

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Chapter 18

• Interactions of Living Things

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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

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2 parts of ecology

• Biotic aspect
• The living part of the environment
• Animals, plants, insects, humans
• Abiotic aspect
• The non-living part of the environment
• Physical factors
• Rocks, water, soil, light, temperature

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Organization in the Environment

• Organism
• Populations
• Communities
• Ecosystems
• Biosphere

• Single animal
• Group of the same animal
• Different populations in the same area
• Includes the abiotic factors
• Earth where life exists

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The Energy Connection

• All living things need energy to survive
• Organisms are divided into groups based on how
  they get energy
• Producers
• Consumers
• Scavengers
• Decomposers

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Producers

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

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Consumers

• Cant make their own energy, get it by eating
  producers or other consumers
• Primary consumer eats the producer
• Secondary consumer eats a consumer
• Herbivore eats only plants
• Carnivore eats only animals
• Omnivores eats both plants and animals

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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

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Food Chains and Webs

• Food chains represent how energy flows from one
  organism to the next
• Rare in nature because animals usually eat more
  than one organism
• Food webs represent many pathways that energy
  flows in an ecosystem

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Energy Pyramids

• Represents the loss of energy by each organism in
  a food chain or web

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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

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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

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Interactions

• Most living things produce more offspring than
  will survive but abiotic and biotic factors will
  control the population size
• Example frogs

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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

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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

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Competition

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

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Predator and Prey

• 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

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Symbiosis

• Long term, association between two or more
  species
• 3 types
• Mutualism
• Commensalism
• Parasitism

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Mutualism

• Both organisms benefit
• Insects pollinating flowers

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Commensalism

• One organism is benefiting and the other is
  unaffected
• Clown fish and sea anemone

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Parasitism

• One organism is harmed and the other is
  benefiting
• Parasite- benefits
• Host - harmed

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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