1. Principles of Ecology

2. What is Ecology? What is a key theme in Ecology???
Using your given cards, form a pair:
One even & one odd number
 Share what you learned from the reading and homework assignment.

3. What is Ecology?
The study of the interactions that take place between organisms and their environment.
INTERDEPENDENCE- All organisms interact with other organisms in their surroundings and with the nonliving portions of their environment.
Survival depends upon these interactions.

4. Levels of Organization

5. Biosphere Area on Earth where organisms are able to live. Includes:
Living components
Nonliving components

6. Ecosystem
Includes all of the organisms and the non-living environment found in a particular place. (e.g. A pond)

7. Biological Community: all the interacting organisms living in an area (e.g. all the fish, turtles, plants, algae, & bacteria in the pond)
Population: includes all the members of a species that live in one place at one time.
Organism: An individual
that is made of cells,
uses energy,
reproduces,
and responds
to its environment.

8. Habitat
Where an organism lives.

9. Journal:
Compare an ecosystem to a habitat

10. Abiotic Factors The nonliving components of the environment.
Journal: List 2 abiotic factors.

11. Biotic Factors The living components of the environment.
Journal: List 2 biotic factors in an environment

12. Niche
An organisms way of life, or role it plays in its environment.

13. Fundamental Niche - the range of conditions that a species can potentially tolerate and the range of resources it can potentially use.
Realized Niche - the range
of resources a species
actually uses. Usually
much narrower than the
fundamental niche.

14. Niche Differences
Generalists vs. Specialists How would you compare the niches that these two organisms occupy??

15. The Changing Environment

16. Responses to a Changing Environment
Acclimation
Control of Internal Condition
Conformers
Regulators
Escape from Unsuitable Conditions
Dormancy
Migration

17. Time to Stand Up!!! Using our Cards
Form a group of 4, all different numbers
Lowest number identifies a community
Second number gives an example of a population within that community.
Third number considers two biotic factors that affect the population
Fourth number gives two examples of abiotic factors that affect the population.

18. Symbiosis
A close and permanent association between organisms of different species.
3 Types:
Mutualism
Commensalism
Parasitism

19. Mutualism
Both species benefit from the interaction.

20. Commensalism
One species benefits while the other is neither harmed nor benefited.

21. Parasitism
One species benefits, while the other is harmed.

22. Food Chain
A single pathway of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosystem that results in energy transfer

23. Energy Flow Producers: Autotrophs Consumers: Heterotroph
Organisms that are able to use light energy to produce their own food
Consumers: Heterotroph
Organisms that can not make their own food.
Feed on other organisms

24. Types of Heterotrophs
Herbivores
Carnivores
Scavengers
Decomposers

25. Energy Transfer
All organisms need energy to carry out essential functions such as growth, movement, maintenance and repair, and reproduction.
Trophic Level: indicates an organism’s position in a sequence of energy transfers.

26. Food Web All the interrelated food chains in an ecosystem
Feeding relationships in an ecosystem are usually too complex to be represented by a single food chain.
Many consumers eat more than one type of food and more than one species of consumer may feed on the same organism.

28. Energy Transfer
Most food chains only consist of few trophic levels because only about 10% of the energy available at one level is transferred to the next level.
Organisms at the bottom of the food chain are usually much more abundant than organisms at the highest level.

29. Energy Transfer
Energy transfer can be seen in the diagram below. The pyramid shape of the diagram indicates the low percentage of energy transfer from one level to the next.

30. Start Problem Solving Lab 2.1
Page 37
Due next time in class