1. Ecology
The study of the interactions that take place among organisms and their environment

2. Aspects of Ecological Study

3. Biosphere The part of Earth that supports life
Top portion of Earth's crust
All the waters that cover Earth's surface
Atmosphere that surrounds Earth.

5. Are nonliving factors of an environment.
Abiotic Factors
Are nonliving factors of an environment.
Abiotoic Factors include amount of water and oxygen, temperature, light, and soil.

6. Biotic Factors
Are the living factors of an environment.

7. Levels of Organization in Ecology

8. Ecosystem
All the organisms living in an area and the nonliving features of their environment
Types:
Terrestrial = land (forest, meadow, desert)
Aquatic = water (pond, lake, stream, ocean)

9. However……..
An ecosystem can be as large as the Sahara Desert, or as small as a puddle, or one tree in the rainforest!!!

10. Ex. Pond Ecosystem

11. Population
All the organisms in an ecosystem that belong to the same species

12. Community
All the interacting populations in an ecosystem

13. The place in which an organism lives
Habitat
The place in which an organism lives
provides the kinds of food and shelter, the temperature, and the amount of moisture the organism needs to survive

15. Niche
Is the role and position a species has in its environment (how it meets its needs for survival)
Example: see the soil ecosystem on pages in text…note each organisms role and how it uses the resources in its own way to survive

16. Living Relationships
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

17. Symbiosis
Relationship in which there is a close and permanent association among organisms of different species
Examples: Commensalism, Mutualism, Parasitism

18. Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

19. Commensalism
Symbiotic Relationship in which one species benefits and the other species is neither harmed nor benefited

20. Ex. Clownfish protected by anemone…anemone not harmed or helped
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

21. Ex. Spider Crab hitches a ride from jellyfish
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

22. Mutualism
A symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit

23. Ex. Ants protect acacia tree by attacking any animal that tries to feed on it…tree provides nectar and home for ants
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

24. Parasitism:
A type of interspecific interaction where one species (the host) is harmed at least in some way by the other (the parasite).

25. Tapeworm
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

26. Dog hookworm
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

27. Filariasis (Elephantiasis) caused by parasitic worm
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

28. Fleas
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

29. Lice
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

30. Ticks
Photo from: Dr. Todd Huspeni – Animal Parasitology UW-Stevens Point

31. Learning Targets
Students will be able to demonstrate how energy transfers through food webs
Students will be able to define and give examples of producers and consumers

32. Box Jellyfish
Live off of Northern Australia – in Great Barrier Reef and in Indo-Pacific
Very powerful venom – among most deadly in world
Can be fatal to humans – and survivors will have pain for months and permanent scars from tentacles
Up to 15 tentacles grow from each corner, and tentacles can be up to 3 meters in length!
Stinging not activated by touch, but by chemical contained on prey
Have eye clusters, but lack a central nervous system, so scientists don’t yet understand how they see
Sea turtles are unaffected by the sting of the jellyfish and regularly eat them
Average lifespan less than 1 year

33. How Organisms Obtain Energy

34. The Producers: Autotrophs
Organisms that use energy from the sun or chemical compounds to make their own nutrients (photosynthesis)

35. Water + carbon dioxide  glucose + oxygen
6H2O CO  C6H12O O2

36. The Consumers: Heterotrophs
Organisms that cannot make their own food and must feed on other organisms

37. Consumers- 5 Types Herbivores - primary consumer – eat plants only
Carnivores - higher level consumers – eat other animals

38. Consumers – 5 Types
Omnivores - can fit in at any consumer level – eat both plants and animals
Decomposers - break down dead organisms
Scavengers - eat dead animals

39. Food Chain
A food chain is a simple model of the feeding relationship in an ecosystem.

40. Food Chain
For example, shrubs are food for deer, and deer are food for mountain lions.
The mountain lion is the second organism of the food chain. It eats the deer. It is the secondary consumer.
Because shrubs make their own food through photosynthesis, they are called producers.
The deer is the first organism of the food chain to eat the shrub. It is the primary consumer.
Shrubs are the beginning of the food chain. They receive their energy from sunlight.

41. Food Chain
Algae make their own food from sunlight. They are the basis for the food chain in this example.

42. Generalized Food Web of the Antarctic
Fig. 4.18, p. 77
Humans
Blue whale
Sperm whale
Crabeater seal
Killer
whale
Elephant
seal
Leopard
Adélie
penguins
Petrel
Fish
Squid
Carnivorous plankton
Krill
Phytoplankton
Herbivorous
zooplankton
Emperor
penguin
Note: Arrows
Go in direction
Of energy flow…

43. Food Webs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbWyrcY5i3s
Food Webs are Food Chains that intersect each other. Food webs are what really happens in nature.
Now…let’s do an activity!!
Grab a textbook and turn to page 53 (1 book per table)…a little background music for you while you get books

44. Food Web Activity
Each group gets a deck of food web cards, whiteboard, and marker
Lay out the cards on the whiteboard, arrange them into a potential food web
Add 5 organisms of your own to the web
Connect the webs with the arrows
Label the autotrophs and heterotrophs
For each heterotroph ID: carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, decomposer, scavenger

45. Where do decomposers fit in food chains?

46. Trophic Level
Each Organism in a food chain represents a feeding step in the passage of energy and materials

47. How does energy transfer in a food chain?
10% rule
Each organism at a trophic level loses energy from its food through waste and metabolic processes. Only 10% of the energy is used for growth and passed on to the next level of the food chain

48. Max Number of Trophic Levels:
3 – 4
Why?
Only 10% of energy gets passed on, so energy dwindles away quickly:
Mouse eats grass – gets 10% energy
Snake eats mouse – gets 10% of 10% = 1%
Hawk eats snake – gets 10% of 1% = 0.1%

49. Energy Pyramid

50. Energy Pyramid
The bars are drawn in proportion to the total energy utilized at each trophic

51. Pyramid of Numbers

52. Pyramid of Numbers
A bar diagram that indicates the relative numbers of organisms at each trophic level in a food chain.
The length of each bar gives a measure of the relative numbers.

53. Pyramid of Biomass

54. Pyramid of Biomass
As pyramids of number but uses dry mass of all organisms at each trophic level.
Music review

55. Does anything else transfer in a food chain?
Toxins (heavy metals, DDT, PCB’s) = stored in the fat of organisms
Bioaccumulation = accumulation of toxic chemicals in the tissue of an organism

56. Biomagnification = increase in concentration of a pollutant from the environment to the first organism and subsequent organisms in a food chain
The higher the animal is on the food chain, the higher the concentration of toxins

57. DDT Problem Background of DDT
DDT is a pesticide used for mosquito control and pest control in agricultural crops.
DDT accumulation in some bird species resulted in death, nervous system damage, and reproductive failure.
As a result DDT was banned in the United States in 1972.

58. DDT is broken down by organism and stored in fat = Damage = decrease population
Reproductive failure (in birds/eagles- eggshell thinning)
Immune system problems
Nervous system damage
Death

59. Bioaccumulation Factor
The concentration of a chemical/toxin in tissue divided by its concentration in the diet