1.  Identify several basic needs shared by plants, insects, and humans.

2.  What is Ecology?  What is a food chain? A food web? What is the difference between them?

3.  The scientific study of interactions between different kinds of living things and between living things and the environment in which they live

4.  The study of the earth and all of its living & non-living parts  Ecologists study ecology

5.  The living world

6.  Genetic fingerprints  Radio transmitters for tracking  Data from satellites

7.  Observations  Experiments  Models

9.  Ecology provides us with information that is necessary to understand and resolve many of the environmental and ecological issues that confront us

10.  To ask & answer questions, gain an appreciation of the short- and long-term effects of actions, and make wise choices on controversial issues

11.  1. Our planet is home not only to humans, but to many other forms of life as well.  2. The health of human society depends on the well-being of much of that life.

12.  All of life’s processes require energy.

14.  Green plants harvest the energy from sunlight via photosynthesis  Photosynthesis—plants take in energy from the sun and use it to make food

15.  Use energy from the sun to change simple non-living chemical nutrients (ex. Water & CO 2 ) in the environment into living tissue  Primary producers are the first producers of energy-rich compounds that are later used by other organisms.  Aka autotrophs  “self-feeding”  Ex. plants

16.  Primary producers store energy in forms that make it available to other organisms that eat them, and are therefore essential to the flow of energy through the biosphere.  For example, plants obtain energy from sunlight and turn it into nutrients that can be eaten and used for energy by animals such as a caterpillar.

17.  The best-known and most common primary producers harness solar energy through the process of photosynthesis.

18.  Deep-sea ecosystems depend on primary producers that harness chemical energy from inorganic molecules such as hydrogen sulfide.  The use of chemical energy to produce carbohydrates is called chemosynthesis.

19.  Cannot make all the building blocks of living tissue from simple nonliving chemical substances available in their environment  Rely on other things for food

20.  ANIMALS MUST EAT OTHER ORGANISMS TO OBTAIN THEIR ENERGY & NUTRIENTS  AKA HETEROTROPHS  (FEED ON OTHER ORGANISMS TO OBTAIN ENERGY)

21.  Herbivores  Carnivores  Omnivores  Parasites  Decomposers

22.  animals that consume the carcasses of other animals that have been killed by predators or have died of other causes

23.  obtain energy by eating autotrophs that have manufactured and stored proteins, carbohydrates, and other high energy substances

24.  Obtain energy and nutrients by eating plant leaves, roots, seeds, or fruits.  Common herbivores include cows, caterpillars, and deer.

25.  obtain energy by eating other animals

26.  Consumers are classified by the ways in which they acquire energy and nutrients.  Carnivores kill and eat other animals, and include snakes, dogs, cats, and this giant river otter.  Catching and killing prey can be difficult and requires energy, but meat is rich in nutrients and energy and is easy to digest.

27.  animals that eat both plants & animals  Humans, bears, and pigs are omnivores.

28.  organisms that live on or in another organism and obtain their nutrients from their living host

29.  feed on the dead bodies of animals & plants or on their waste products

30.  Example: bacteria and fungi, feed by chemically breaking down organic matter. The decay caused by decomposers is part of the process that produces detritus—small pieces of dead and decaying plant and animal remains

31.  feed on detritus particles, often chewing or grinding them into smaller pieces.  Detritivores commonly digest decomposers that live on, and in, detritus particles.  Ex. Earthworms

32. —A ONE-WAY FLOW  BECAUSE ENERGY CANNOT BE RECYCLED OR USED AGAIN IN THE BIOSPHERE IT CAN BE THOUGHT OF AS A FLOW—A ONE-WAY FLOW

33.  Sun light  Primary producers  consumers  decomposers

34.  Feeding level in the flow of food energy & nutrients from primary producers to the highest level consumers

35.  There is no limit to the number of trophic levels in the biosphere.  HOWEVER, the greater the number of trophic levels between consumers and primary producers the smaller amount of energy that is available to the consumers compared to the energy originally captured by the primary producers.

36.  only ~10% of the energy at one trophic level can be used by the consumers at the next level

37.  The total amount of living tissue within a given trophic level is called its biomass.  The amount of biomass a given trophic level can support is determined, in part, by the amount of energy available.  Typically, the greatest biomass is at the base of the pyramid, as is seen in the field ecosystem modeled here.

38.  Ecological pyramids show the relative amount of energy or matter contained within each trophic level in a given food chain or food web.  There are three different types of ecological pyramids: pyramids of energy, pyramids of biomass, and pyramids of numbers.

39.  There is theoretically no limit to the number of trophic levels in a food web or the number of organisms that live on each level.  However, only a small portion of the energy that passes through any given trophic level is ultimately stored in the bodies of organisms at the next level.

40.  Diagram showing the decreasing amounts of energy, living tissue, or number of organisms at successive trophic levels

41.  Organisms in each trophic level eat members of the level beneath them to obtain both energy & nutrients  Energy & nutrients move together from one trophic level to the next

42.  Each step in a food chain or food web is called a trophic level.  Primary producers always make up the first trophic level.  Various consumers occupy every other level. Some examples are shown.

46. Who eats whom?

47.  What is a food chain? A food web?  What is the difference between them?

48.  Sequence of organisms related to one another as predator and prey

52.  Eat left overs from other animals

53.  Examples of scavengers:  Vultures  Hyenas  Any time you see anything picking away at road kill, you are witnessing scavenging

54.  Animals that digest a combination of bacteria, bodily wastes, and bits of decaying organisms  Example: Earthworms

55.  Best way to illustrate how organisms feed on one another  Shows the complex feeding relationships that result from interconnecting food chains

61.  Biotic  The living environment  Abiotic  Non-living environment

62.  water cycle  carbon cycle  oxygen cycle  nitrogen cycle  phosphorus cycle  sulfur cycle

63.  A group of organisms of a single species that live in a given area

64.  the world's major communities, classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment

65.  Tundra  Taiga  Temperate forest  Tropical rainforest  Desert  Grassland  Ocean