Ecosystems and Human Interference -The Water Cycle -How is drinking water produced in the cycle?

Ecosystems and Human Interference -The Carbon Cycle Why are we accumulating more carbon dioxide in the air?

Ecosystems and Human Interference -The Nitrogen Cycle Nitrogen fixation occurs when N2 is converted to a form plants can use. Some chemoheterotrophic bacteria have a mutualistic relationship with legumes and reduce atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia (NH3). Another set of free living chemoautotrophic bacteria convert ammonia (NH3) to nitrites (NO2) and nitrates (NO3) in a process known as nitrification. Plants take up ammonia and nitrate from the soil to produce amino acids which make up proteins.

Ecosystems and Human Interference -The Phosphorous Cycle

Ecosystems and Communities

The role of Climate 4.1

What is the difference between weather and climate? Weather is day to day conditions of a particular place in a particular time where climate is the long term average conditions of temperature and precipitation year after year

How does latitude effect climate?

How is heat transported throughout the biosphere?

What shapes an ecosystem? 4.2

Aspects of Ecological Study The nonliving environment: Abiotic The living environment: Biotic Key Concept-Together, biotic and abiotic factors determine the survival and growth of an organism and the productivity of the ecosystem in which the organism lives

Examples of Abiotic factors: Air currents Temperature Moisture Quantity of light

How is a Habitat different from a Niche?

A habitat is a place where an organism lives out it’s life with other organisms but a niche is the unique role an organism plays in the habitat to fulfill it’s needs.

By different organisms filling different niches, competition is minimized.

Competitive exclusion principal, Which law states that “no two species can occupy the same niche in the same habitat at the same time” Competitive exclusion principal,

Resource Partitioning

Organisms develop a variety of living relationships with each other in a habitat. In some instances there is a predation and in other instances there is symbiosis.

Community Ecology-Predation If caught, I can not contribute to the gene pool This is a classic graph constructed from pelts received by the Hudson Bay Trading company

There are a variety of symbiotic relationships. What are they? Commensalisms- one species benefits and the other is unharmed. Mutualism- Both species benefit. Parasitism- One species benefits while the other is harmed.

The orderly, natural changes and replacement of species that takes place in the communities of an ecosystem is known as succession

There are two types of succession Primary Occurs on land that is newly formed where soil does not exist Requires a pioneer species ( often lichens) Takes a very long time Secondary Occurs on land that previously had life and was wiped out by a man or a natural disaster. Much faster than primary succession

Lichens are unusual creatures Lichens are unusual creatures. A lichen is not a single organism the way most other living things are, but rather it is a combination of fungus and algal cells inhabiting one organism.