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Ecology: Introduction and Terminology

Added Nov 08, 2019 •

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Introduction to Ecology and the organisms found within an ecological system.

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unit we're going to cover this year is ecology the term ecology can be broken down into Eco meeting house and ology meaning the study of so ecology is studying our home it's starting the interactions of all living things with one and the interactions of those living things with their physical and nonliving environment so the study of plants and animals and fungi and bacteria and how they interact with one another and with soil sunlight water in the climate around them and ecosystem is a component of ecology and that is a community all the organisms in one given area and the non-living factors that will affect them are some important levels of organization to acknowledge for Ecology we typically start at the level of the species and we talked about that definition in evolution and we're going to go over in a minute but members of the same species will build up to a population several populations will build up into a community all the different communities compose an ecosystem set of specific ecosystems will create a biome then all the biomes together create what we called the biosphere and will go into detail about each of those definitions now so you know that a species is a group of organisms that are capable of interbreeding and they have to be able to used fertile offspring meaning they can continue through generations with reproduction population is just when you get members of that same species in the same area so good example of that is a population like a school classroom all the same members of the same species in one an area a community is when you incorporate two different populations of different species interacting in the same place and a biome is a community of plants and animals act as a distinct region so we know like a desert biome has specific plans animals that we find in those areas saltwater biomes are different than freshwater biomes that kind of thing the largest and broadest term on the scale is the biosphere on that contains all of the portions of the planet where life can exist so that's land water the atmosphere so in for our purposes the biosphere is just planet Earth so species with the smallest level the biosphere is definitely the largest and broadest classification it's really important terms to know while we're talking about a college we are biotic factors and abiotic factors you might remember those from earlier signs classes bio that prefix is always talking about living things so biotic factors are living factors living organisms in habitats of plants and animals being example of that biotic factors whenever you see the prefix that means not born on for something so abiotic factors are the nonliving aspects of the physical aspects of a habitat that like sun exposure soil properties water heat are those kinds of things the biotic factors and abiotic factors both play really important roles in ecology habitat is an area where an organism lives it includes both of those biotic and abiotic factors to the habitat meets those specific needs of the species and at the habitat changes the species need to be able to adapt that change go somewhere else or they could face Extinction energy flow is a very important component of ecology all organisms require energy it's one of those characteristic life all living things use energy and raw materials we've talked about autotrophs and heterotrophs before Trove just means it's associated with energy that terminology an autotroph is one that's capable of capturing energy from the Sun some chemicals there's another process similar to photosynthesis where organisms can make their own food to produce their own food for themselves they're also called in this unit on producers so organisms that cap so talking about producers those are what we call the first energy level of an ecosystem during photosynthesis water filter going to take in energy from the Sun that radiant solar at and they're going to use that to power the chemical reactions that will take atmospheric carbon dioxide and water and turn them into oxygen and glucose a high-energy sugars remember photosynthesis is a plants take in sunlight and Co and water and turn that into sugars for themselves to store energy so examples of things that can do this photosynthetic process or Plants algae and some photosynthetic bacteria consumers are the opposite of producers making your own food they have to go out and consume plants or other animals are organisms to get their energy so we also Collies heterotrophs that the key terminologies earlier in the school year and there are actually three different categories of consume we consider primary consumers secondary consumers and tertiary consumers depending on exactly what they eat so primary consumers means that they're the first to consume on a food chain so those are herbivores are other primary producers so how is worse is routed some insects anything that's going to eat plants is considered an herbivore that's a primary consumer primary primary meeting first secondary consumers are the ones that eat herbivores or carnivores animals that eat other animals so these are like tigers or wolves are snakes and this also includes omnivores carnivores are animals that eat both plants and other animals that should say so dimples do you like Bears or humans tertiary consumers are a higher level on a food chain so those are carnivores that eat other carnivores is what we call the top predators are top carnivores in an ecosystem so if a hawk on eats a snake snake has eaten mice in the past so that would be a tertiary consumer at the Aguadilla tertiary consumer if a lion eats a Hina the line would be the tertiary consumer in that scenario decomposers are enough really important component of ecosystems are responsible for breaking down and taking in nutrients from dead organisms on a molecular scale basically they just cause Decay they did Crosby composition of dead organisms and habitats that's really important because it cleans up ecosystem it also helps return those nutrients that were in the bodies of those living plants or animals no turns it into the soil and into the ecosystem to use by other organisms some good examples of decomposers are fungi or bacteria another very important group of organisms in an ecosystem are scavengers cities consume organisms that have already died they don't actively hunt or kill them they're just kind of there to help clean up the ecosystem along with the decomposers say things like buzzards turkey vultures be good examples of scavengers they're not actively going after pray they don't have the adaptations that allow them to be skillful Hunters like other carnivores but they are there to pick up their names of deceased organisms so we are looking at all those different levels of an ecosystem we're looking at feeding relationships basically a more looking at how energy is Flowing from start to finish with the ecosystem so all of the energy is going to originate from the Sun solar energy is where we good every other piece of energy in that system the sun gives its solar energy to the autotrophs are producers the autotrophs and producers turn that energy into glucose for themselves and that will go to the rumors for header Filson ecosystem will move up those levels one by one a food chain is a series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating or being eaten I'm sure you've talked about these in the past before it's very simple if you are producer is grass and your consumer the herbivore is like a grasshopper that grasshopper will get energy from the grass the grass that energy from the Sun if a bird eats a grasshopper the bird is a carnivore taking the energy from the grasshopper that got the energy from the grass that got the energy from the Sun food webs are a little bit more complex it's looking at all of the different food chains in an ecosystem basically so it's much more complex interactions all those different feeding relationships and there is a lot of different things going on and if we live and that's a better representation of real ecosystems because no ecosystem consists so simply one food chain it's really very complicated food webs involved here's one example of what simple food web might look like you have your producer autotroph down here the sunflower you have different organisms that get energy from the flower the Arizona's point to wherever the energy goes in this case from the flower to the herbivores down here and then when other organisms consumers eat these herbivores the energy gets transferred there so ladybugs those are actually on predatory insects when they eat things like aphids they get the energy from the David got the energy from the flower and the flower got the energy from the Sun and you can continue going up throughout these different levels of the food web to see exactly which organisms interact with one another this is also one of the reasons why removing species from habitat can be very dangerous because it's not just that one species removing your messing with this entire food web of that ecosystem and in this instance you see that right here we have an airplane in both directions at means that the mosquito takes blood and gets energy from this bird but the bird can also eat the mosquito and therefore get energy in this direction as well so in this case we are playing in both directions boy want to look at when you see food chain or food web is where the arrows pointing to that follows the flow of energy this is just another example of a food web in an actual type of community in the world like a savanna community obviously in real life there be many more producers listed down here but this shows a few different producers some of the consumers that will eat those plants and again these arrows are going to follow wherever the energy is flowing in ecosystem you have predators that are going to consume these different herbivores and then in some cases you have even tertiary consumers so these are the predators that eat other predators in a case equal pyramids are there simple Concept in ecology we're basically just looking at the relative amount of energy or matter contained in each level of a food chain or food web it's important remember that all this energy originates from the Sun and that sunlight that solar energy radiant energy is converted to digestible energy during photosynthesis by autotrophs they take that radiant energy and they turn it into glucose or sugar when the plants get eaten that energy stored in glucose gets transferred to ever Animal Aid and that help sustain life you continue transferring the energy up the food chain one by one throughout the levels of the energy stored at one trophic level gets passed on to the next level because some of that energy is going to be used biological processes during that consumption so it gets less and less efficient as you move up the lines The Producers will get the bulk of the energy from the sunlight the herbivores will get most of the energy from the producers they're herbivores will get the most a little bit less of the energy from those autotrophs and so on so here's a simple example of an energy pyramid you start with the plants are producers at the base of it and if you see any given ecosystem this is really the distribution those living things as well there should be more of the producers than anything else because the producers have to sustain the herbivores at the next level there's going to be a few less carnivores compared to herbivores because if you run out of this food horse here then your Predators will start so we go from grass is the producer we have a rabbit here as the consumer the primary consumer or before you have a fox as a secondary consumer or carnivore and here we have a hawk as a tertiary consumer the top carnivore in this ecosystem so the energy would start from the grass and work its way through each of these different organisms and as a general rule of thumb energy transfer again always originates with sunlight it starts with the Sun goes directly to producers who use turn that radiant energy into glucose through photosynthesis they pass some of that energy of the primary consumers the primary consumers give it to the secondary consumers and finally add with the tertiary consumers at the top what are some important terms and Concepts in ecology are going to have to understand in order to keep up with this unit so just make sure you know those levels of organization the difference between biotic and abiotic factors in those different eating and energy relationships with an ecosystem

Uploaded by Laura Lovelace.

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Ecology: Introduction and Terminology

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