ECOLOGY CHAPTER 1

1.1 Ecosystems Support Life

This information goes with pages 9-10 of your Ecology textbook. Read it before you view this.

Ecosystems are where living things get their needs met. What are those needs? Recall: energy air

water living space

So, living things get these needs met in an ecosystem.

What might an ecosystem look like? It’s an environment like

A pond The living parts like the duck, frog, fish and plants, but also the nonliving parts like the sunlight, and water, and air.

The living parts like the cactus, A desert insects, snakes and lizards, but also the nonliving parts like the sand, sunlight, and air.

The living things need the nonliving things like water, air and sunlight. The nonliving things need the living things, for example: soil is added to by dead things that break down when they die. This needing or relating to each other is called interaction.

Living and nonliving things have special scientific names:

Biotic means living thing (Bio –means life)

Abiotic means nonliving thing (A – means not, so abiotic = not life)

Which of these below are biotic? And which are abiotic?

Puppy, tree, water, soil, horse, worm, mushroom, sunshine, rock, human, grass, mold, temperature

You should have answered:

Biotic (living) Abiotic (nonliving)puppy sunshine tree rock horse temperatureworm watermushroom soilhuman grass mold

It’s important to remember that an ecosystem is the environment and the biotic and abiotic things that interact there.

This information goes with pages11-13 of your Ecology textbook. Read it before you view this.

Abiotic factors:

1. Temperature – this affects the plants that grow in an area. You won’t find cacti (cactuses) where we live, will you? Animals depend on the temperature too. You won’t

find polar bears where we live-black bears but not polar bears!

2. Sunlight provides plants with the ability to make their own food. They use the sun to make food by photosynthesis. Other living things depend on the sun because it keeps them warm, and they eat plants (or they eat animals that eat plants.)

Abiotic Factors:

3. Soil: Plants need nutrients that are in the soil to grow. Different soil types hold lots of water or not much water. Plants are fussy about this. Some like a great deal of water; some like soil more dry.

4. Water: You are probably going to feel thirsty after reading this! All living things need water. If there is more water in and ecosystems more living things can live there. We don’t need as much water as fish though. So some ecosystems have more water for water life.

What are the 4 Abiotic Factors?

After listing them proceed to the next slide

You should have listed:1) Temperature2) Sunlight3) Soil 4) Water

1.2 Matter Cycles Through Ecosystems

This information goes with pages 16-18 of your Ecology textbook. Read it before you view this.

Living things use matter from their environment.

Then the matter is returned to the environment.

This repeats over and over again. Events that happen over and over, like this are called CYCLES

Three important repeating series of events that are CYCLES are the:

Water Cycle

Carbon Cycle and

Nitrogen Cycle.

Water Cycle Living things use water and return it to the environment, but more importantly the water cycles between land and the air. See the diagram on page 17.

Notice the water falls as precipitation. Precipitation includes rain, snow and hail. You need to know this word

Water runs over the ground and under the ground. You need to know the words on the diagram that include ground water (underground) and runoff (on the ground)

Water collects in puddles, lakes, streams, oceans, and ice sheets.

Then water rises as it warms up. It is becoming a gas called water vapor and is no longer a liquid. This process is of going from liquid to gas is evaporation. Plants let some water out of their leaves. This is transpiration. Animals breathe air out that has some water in it. This is respiration. You need to know these words too.

Lastly, the water attaches to little dust particles in the air and hangs there. That’s called condensation. This is how clouds are made. If you’ve walked in fog or a foggy bathroom, you’ve walked within a cloud!

You’ve seen condensation in your bathroom when you take a hot shower. It is the drops of water vapor clinging to the mirror and walls. Or when you drink a cold drink, water clings to your glass from the outside of the glass. So dust isn’t the only thing water vapor can cling too.

There is always water vapor in the air. We can only feel it when there is a lot in the air. We call that humidity.

We are mostly interested in the water cycle this year. But Carbon and Nitrogen are important too so look at those cycles on pages 18 and 20.

Carbon Cycle:Plants use carbon to make food. They use carbon dioxide, also known as CO2. The way they do this is called photosynthesis

In the diagram, this photosynthesis occurs under water and above ground. This is because there are plants in both places.

Animals eat plants- or they eat animals that have eaten plants. This is how animals get carbon within their bodies. You have carbon in your body. You breath some out (respiration) as carbon dioxide.

When animals and plants die, the carbon still in their bodies sinks into the ground with their remains. Some carbon will become fossil fuels! Fossil fuels are oil, gas, and coal. When this fuel is used it releases carbon back into the air as carbon dioxide, CO2.

Nitrogen Cycle page 20

Nitrogen is important to our bodies. 80% or of the air is nitrogen.

We can’t use it by breathing it in though. Here’s how the nitrogen cycle works:

Plants get it from the soil.Animals eat the plants.

There is help to do this-Lightning and bacteria change the nitrogen so it can be used in the soil. Bacteria also help nitrogen get back into the air. This is called nitrogen “fixing”

1.3 Energy Flows Through EcosystemsThis information goes with pages 22-25 of your text book read it before you view these slides. You need to know the red words below.

Energy flows through ecosystems in the form of chemical energy. One type of chemical energy is the type of energy food gives.

The sun’ energy provides a plant with energy to make food. The energy of the sun is turned into one type of sugar by the plant. Because a plant makes food, it is also called a producer. “Produce” means to make something.

Plants are eaten by animals. And these plant-eating animals are eaten by other animals. When a living being eats another organism it is called a consumer.

Producers can make food. Consumers cannot.

Decomposers eat and “break down” dead producers and consumers

Energy Flow is Shown Through ModelsYou need to read pages 26-28 and view the diagrams before reading these slides.

Food energy, also called chemical energy, moves through an ecosystem from producer to consumer to decomposer.

A simple model of food energy movement is shown as one food chain.

Rabbit eats plant so Coyote eats energy moves rabbit so

energy moves

Decomposers like bacteria eat what’s left when the plant, rabbit or coyote die

Energy Flow is Shown Through Models

A more real and complicated model of food energy moving through an ecosystem is a food web

Notice, for example,the deer could eattwo different producers. The fox gets energy from eatinga chipmunk, or a rabbit, ora mouse.

Energy Flow is Shown Through Models

A third model shows how energy moves through an ecosystem, but also shows that some energy is lost.

So producers use the sun’s energy to make food. This helps them grow and be good to eat.

Then primary (1st) consumers eat the producer. The energy from the producer is stored but some is used up during everyday movement.

The secondary (2nd) consumer eat the primary consumers. Less secondary consumers from this ecosystem will be fed because of lost energy. These secondary consumers move around so not all the energy is stored. Some is lost through movement.

Less tertiary (3rd) consumers will be fed than primary or secondary consumers in this ecosystem then.

1.4 Biomes Contain Many Ecosystems

Read page 30 and the headings and picture captions on pages 32-34 before viewing these slides.

A biome is a large area of the world with many ecosystems in it, and the ecosystems all have similar climate, plants, and animals.

There are two main types of biomes: land and water.

Land biomes are classified into 6 major types. The two coldest are the taiga and tundra. You are probably familiar with the third and driest land biome, the desert. A fourth, the grassland biome, is not quite as warm as the desert. The last two of the land biomes are the temperate forest and tropical forest biomes. Trees grow well in these biomes.

Water biomes are all different from each other too. Read the captions and view the pictures on pages 35-37 before viewing this slide

There are two purely freshwater biomes: the River Biome and the Lakes / Ponds Biome. Not quite freshwater and not quite saltwater is the Estuary. It is where fresh and salt water mix. It is classified by our text as a freshwater biome though.

There are three Marine biomes. (Marine- means of the sea.) The three marine biomes are : Coastal, Open Ocean, and Deep Ocean.