1. What is Natural History? the study of the natural environment with an emphasis on identification, formation/origin of physical features, life-history, distribution, abundance, and inter-relationships. – It often and appropriately includes an Aesthetic component.

2. The Natural Environment—Ecosystems An interacting unit of living and non-living components. –Non-living things (abiotic)—the physical environment Water, temperature/heat, sunlight, wind/air, soil/minerals, nutrients (found in air, water, & soil) etc… –Living Things (biotic) Plants, animals, fungi, microbes All the living things of an area = community

3. Major Ecosystem Interactions Nutrient uptake, transfer, and recycling. Energy production, transfer, and loss Resources and physical conditions determine what and where living things are found and in what numbers. Ecological Succession Symbiosis: very/unusually close relationships among organism

4. How do living things get their food (trophic levels) Producers (autotrophs)—they make their own through photosynthesis. –Use energy of sun to combine nutrients (from soil, water, air) to make food (and other molecules) –plants, algae, some bacteria Herbivores—they eat producers Carnivores—eat herbivores Decomposers: eat the dead and detrius. –Bacteria, fungi, other microbes Consumers (i.e., animals)

6. Energy Flow The energy needed for life originates from the sun. Is captured by plants (and other producers) Is passed from one organism to another as they eat (or decompose) one another A little energy is lost at each transfer so the amount of energy diminishes from one organism to another.

8. Another example of a food web Trophic levels are color coded.

11. Nutrient/Chemical Cycles All the nutrients and molecules an organism needs are obtained from the surrounding physical environment (air, water, soil, or another living thing) They pass from one organism to the next Are returned to the environment through waste products or decomposition of the dead. Nutrients are thus made available for use again.

13. CARBON CYCLE — carbon passes from physical environement to producers (e.g., plants) to animals, to another animal (etc.) and returns to the physical env through waste and decomposition (of dead).

14. Tolerance Ranges For every physical aspect of the environment and for every substance used by an organism : –(e.g., temperature, water, wind, minerals, nutrients, pH, etc): –There is a minimum amount needed and a maximum amount that can be tolerated. –Between the minimum needed and maximum tolerable is the “tolerance range)

15. Tolerance range a simple schematic water wetdry too wet for the grass to survive too dry for the grass to survive Tolerance range there is enough to meet the grasses needs, but not too much

16. Competition Same species— Different species –Competative exclusion

17. Competitive Exclusion Two species sharing the same niche cannot co-exist forever –because they directly compete (for resources which reduces the amount of resources that either species successfully obtains) –The species that is the better competitor (in a given environment) will exclude the other specie from existing in that same location  this is competitive exclusion

18. The brown barnacle competitively excludes the gray barnacle from the lower area even though the gray barnacle could tolerate that area

19. Distribution of Living Organisms across the landscape is determined by a combination of (things are where they are because): Physical factors –specifically availability and tolerance of physical factors Competition Predation Dispersal –has the organism been able to get to an area from its existing range

20. Niche The role an organism plays in its environment How an organism “makes its living”. All the ways a species uses its physical environment/resources and all its interactions with other living things. Examples of what a niche contains: –What it eats –When it eats –How it gets food –What eats it –When is it active –What wastes does it put back into the environment –What resources it needs (nutrients, space, shelter, etc)

21. THE CENTRAL IMPORTANCE OF PLANTS Plants cannot move (animals can). –Thus they are reflective of the physical conditions at a particular area. They form the base of the food chain –Biologically available energy and nutrients originate from plants The type of plants in a location influences the type of animals at that same location –Via habitat structure and food availability (type and amount) Ecosystems/communities are usually identified by the plants groups they posses.

22. HOW PLANTS WORK OBTAINING ENERGY OBTAINING RESOURCES REPRODUCTION

23. HOW PLANTS OBTAIN ENERGY Plants make their own food with photosynthesis. –H 2 0 + CO 2 C 6 H 12 0 6 + O 2 Glucose sugar is used as source of energy and as a building material for most everything else the plant needs and is made of. Non-photosynthetic organism get all of their carbon and by eating plants (directly or indirectly) Glucose/sugar sunlight

24. How plants obtain resources Obtaining water: –from soil (except aquatic plants) by roots. –lose water through leaves, but some water loss is required to move it. –roots get it, leaves lose it. Obtaining Sun: –Leaves Obtaining carbon dioxide: –from leaves pores called stomata, but letting CO2 in allows water to exit.

25. PLANT REPRODUCTION Sexual Reproduction (flowers, cones, spores, etc) Since plants can’t move: –their sperm needs to disperse to eggs animal pollinators, wind, or water) –offspring (seeds and spores) need to disperse away from parents by animals, wind, water, or “explosive propulsion ” Asexual (roots, stem base, runners, fragments) –Alternative reproduction includes self-fertilizing and vegetative propagation (cloning).

26. Symbiosis Particularly close relationships between two or more organisms –Often refers to situation when one organism lives in or on another organism Mutualism Commensalism Parasitism HostSymbiot x

27. Abiotic (non-living) factors affecting the distribution of organisms Temperature Water Sunlight Wind Soil Conditions –pH –salt content/salinity –sandy –tightly packed –organic content Large Scale Small Scale

28. All Organisms Face the Same Problems How to get energy and nutrients (including water). –These are obtained from the environment How to cope with/respond to the physical environment (e.g., heat, cold, wind) How to ____ with other organisms. How to reproduce.

29. Community All the organisms that live in a particular area –A collection of populations of different types of organisms