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Transcript of Ecology
Make Your Own Community
Background and Pre-Questions:
You and your lab partner need to design a self-contained community in a bottle. You will set up a controlled experiment and test ONE variable.
Characteristics of Life
Growth and Development
Response to Environment
Made of cells
Maintain a stable internal environment
Obtain and use material and energy
1. According to your book there are 8 characteristics of living things. My list only contains 7 characteristics. Which two characteristics can be combined into one?
2. When scientists are looking for extra-terrestrial life and habitable planets, what specifically are they looking for?
3. All life is organic. What does it mean to be an organic based life form?
DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid
sexual and asexual
Individuals do not evolve, populations do.
1. All livings things are composed of cells.
2. All cells come from preexisting cells
3. The cell is the basic unit of structure for all living things.
Cellular Basis of Life
Information and Heredity
Matter and Energy
Growth, Development, and Reproduction
Structure and Function
Central Themes of Biology
Unity and Diversity of Life
Independence in Nature
Science as a Way of Knowing
Building the Tree of Life
Genomics and Molecular Biology
What are some examples in humans?
Levels of Organization
The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
Ecologists study environmental interactions at several levels:
individual, population, community, ecosystem, biome, biosphere, interdependence, biotic, abiotic
1. How are biotic and abiotic factors related?
2. How would you determine if the water in a stream is safe to drink?
Toxins in a Food Chain
1. Take 5 minutes to make objective observations of your ecosystems. Did you take an initial temperature when it was set-up? A pH? Detailed observations?
2. What is the difference between an autotroph and a heterotroph?
3. Can there be a non-photosynthetic autotroph?
4. What is the importance of decomposers in a food web?
observations involve the feelings, emotions, and beliefs of the person making the observation.
observations are based on qualitative and quantifiable data (they are the same for everyone).
What does a food chain show?
What does a food web show?
How much energy is lost as you move up a level in a food pyramid?
Which if the three is the most accurate to the real world?
There is a finite amount of materials in an ecosystem therefore they need to be cycled so they don't run out.
Questions to consider:
1. Why is this nutrient important?
2. How is obtained?
3. How is it cycled?
: liquid to a gas (vapor)
-Condensation: gas to a liquid
: water, in any form, falling to the surface of the earth.
: the flow of water over land. It can carry many materials.
: the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere.
1. Nitrogen Fixation
: Nitrogen in the atmosphere is converted into a form that is more useable for producers (
). Three methods of nitrogen fixation:
bacteria, fertilizer production, and lightning.
: the burning of materials, requires oxygen, releases heat and CO2.
: decomposition leads to the formation of
, a toxic compound. Nitrifying bacteria convert the
, a usable form of nitrogen.
: bacteria convert
free atmospheric nitrogen
Natural, gradual changes in the types of species that live in an area
Predator - Prey
close relationship between two organisms of different species
A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance.
A predator is an organism that eats another organism. The prey is the organism which the predator eats.
a symbiotic relationship where both organisms benefit. (+,+)
1. Why are there different types of biomes?
2. Describe the niche of a squirrel living at GA.
3. According to the competitive exclusion principle no two species can occupy the same niche at the same time in the same place. If this is true why are there so many different species on the planet?
Herbivore - Plant Relationships
- Occurs on newly exposed surfaces.
- Pioneer species include lichens.
- A very slow process.
- Leads to a climax community.
- Begins after a disturbance occurs.
- Pioneer species include grasses.
- A much faster process.
Can there be a (-,-) interaction?
Lichen: a symbiont between a fungus an alga.
Why does succession occur?
Why doesn't succession occur on the Brunswick field?
Climate and Abiotic Factors:
Adaptations and Examples:
- Oceanic organism must regulate their salt content. They can easily have too much salt.
- Photosynthetic organisms live in the photic zone (up to 200 m in depth).
- The most abundant photosynthetic organisms are single algae.
-- Close to the shore there is high biodiversity.
The average temperature is ______.
Divided up into four sub-divisions based upon sunlight, distance from shore and water depth, open ocean or ocean bottom.
Nutrients come from the land so the open ocean is nutrient poor.
-Largest and most stable biome.
-Biggest producer of food and oxygen on the planet.
-Average depth of over 2 miles
-Bay of Fundy (53 feet)
-3.1 billion (44%) population is coastal
1. Do you agree with Agent Smith, that humans are a parasite to the planet earth?
2. Scientists believe the Earth cannot sustain more than 10-12 billion people? Do you agree? Explain.
3. Define: Carrying capacity and limiting factors.
: any factor that can limit the growth of a population.
these factors increase as the population increases.
factors whose occurrence is unrelated to population density.
competition for food, predation, disease
earthquakes, storms, fires, floods
With your group, list as many human caused environmental problems as you can.
Which problem causes all of the others?
Is it alive?