Unit 2 Lesson 1 Overview of Ecology - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Unit 2 Lesson 1Overview of Ecologyand Levels Of Organization in Biology and Ecology

Springfield Central High SchoolSlide2

Questions to AnswerDaily Problem Set Unit 2- #1

1.

Explain what ecology is.

2.

In the relationship between the lynx and the hare, what factors, biotic and

abiotic, can cause these two populations to rise and fall?

3. Explain the levels of organization in ecology using the example of a zebra.

4. Describe the feeding relationships in ecology. 

What do you think ecology is?Slide3

Overview and Introduction to The Study of Ecology

What is Ecology?

Ecology: n. branch of biology dealing with the relationships between organisms and the environments.

Ecology

shows relationships among living (biotic) and nonliving (

abiotic) parts of the world.Concepts to Be Discussed in Unit 2 Ecology:

Interaction

InterdependenceEvolution

Cycles 

The word ecology has a Greek origin;

"

oikos

"

in Greek means "house", while

"

ology

"

means "discussion" or "study".  Slide4

8/27 HomeworkWhat does the term “Eco-Friendly mean?Give me four examples of things you consider “Eco-Friendly items or processes.

What is Ecology? How does it involve us?

Activity: Make a Food chain involving at least 5 organisms of your choice. Draw it out showing what eats what.Slide5

 Massachusetts Framework Standard for EcologyCentral Concept: Ecology is the interaction among organisms and between organisms and their environment. 

6.1   Explain how birth, death, immigration, and emigration influence population size.

6.2   Analyze changes in population size and biodiversity (speciation and extinction) that result from the following: natural causes, changes in climate, human activity, and the introduction of invasive, non-native species.

6.3  

Use a food web to identify and distinguish producers, consumers, and decomposers, and explain the transfer of energy through

trophic levels. Describe how relationships among organisms (predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, mutualism) add to the complexity of biological communities.

6.4  Explain how water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle between abiotic resources and organic matter in an ecosystem, and how oxygen cycles through photosynthesis and respiration.   Slide6

The Biosphere and Gaia

The part of the natural world that ecology deals with is called the

biosphere

. 

The

biosphere is the portion of Earth that can support life.The biosphere extends as high into the sky that we find life and as deep into the Earth as we find living things.  

Scientists often view the whole biosphere as if it were one whole organism. This is known as the Gaia Hypothesis.

What is the Gaia Hypothesis? Slide7

Levels of Organization in EcologyThe Concept of Scale is applied to the biosphere through the levels of organization

.  In ecology we study

six of these levels

.

Biosphere is divided into ecosystems. Ecosystems are divided into biomes. Biomes

are divided into  communities. Communities

( aka. Biocoenosis) are divided into populations.

P

opulations

are  divided into  individual organisms of particular species.

Large Importance on Populations!

because evolutionary pressure is applied to populations  rather than the other levels of organization in biology.

Individual organism  (from a  Species that have evolved from a common ancestry and share common anatomy and physiology).Slide8

Key Concepts of Ecology are: Interaction and InterdependenceEcologists study the interactions and interdependences between living things and their stimuli

. 

Organisms have interactions and interdependence between each other with their environment.

Interaction means there is a relationship between two or more organisms.

Interdependent means that these organisms interacting are dependent upon each other.

Living things are affected by the interaction and interdependence with other living things, and with the physical environment. 

As you recall one of the characteristics of living things is that living organisms respond to stimuli.

Ecologists study the interactions and interdependences between living things and their stimuli. 

Discuss the key concepts of this unit.Slide9

Examples of interactions and interdependence between organisms and the organisms environment:Light energy from the sun is captured and transformed into chemical energy (carbohydrates) in the process of photosynthesis.

The energy passes through the environment from one organism to another via the feeding relationship. 

This energy is passed through carbon-based molecules and other nutrients

  Slide10

8/29 HomeworkDefine These terms:Predator Prey

Consumer Producer

Heterotroph Autotroph

Abiotic Biotic

What

is one amazing predator alive today? Give me 5 interesting facts about it.Slide11

Energy From the Sun Cycles Through the Environment Via the feeding relationships. Slide12

The Feeding RelationshipsLight energy from the sun is transformed into chemical energy by photosynthesis. The energy as carbon chemical molecules can then be passed through the ecosystem from one organism to the next.

The Feeding Relationships: 

Autotroph: self-feeders

Photosynthetic

Chemosynthetic

2. Heterotroph: feeds on others

Herbivores eat plants  Carnivores eat meat  Omnivores eat plants & meat 

Detritivores (aka decomposers) eat decaying matter

What are the feeding relationships?Slide13

Other Examples of Interactions and Interdependence Between Different Organisms:Living Relationships ( aka. Symbiosis)

Predation

(aka. Predator/prey relationship, one organism, the predator, hunts another, the prey) 

Commensalism

(a relationship where one organism benefits and the other isn’t helped or hurt. 

Mutualism (interactions where both organisms benefit from the relationship) Parasitism (relationship where one organism benefits from the interaction and the other organism is harmed)Amensalism   (relationship where one species is not effected by surrounding organisms but negatively effects its neighbors, usually through chemicals)

What is symbiosis?Slide14

8/29-8/30 WarmupIn your own words, please explain these terms in your own wordsEconomic

Environmental

SocialSlide15

The Living Relationships, SymbiosisSlide16

Predation

The classic and best studied example of predation is the relationship between the lynx and the hare.

Predation is a relationship where one organism is hunted and consumed by another organism

.

What is predation?Slide17

CommensalismA classic example of commensalism is the cattle egret (Bubulcus

ibis

) and cattle or other grazing animals.

As the cattle eat the grass insects are forced out into the open where the egrets eat the insects. 

The cattle is not benefited nor harmed, but the egret is benefited by getting an easy meal.

What is commensalism?Slide18

MutualismMutualism is a symbiotic relationship where both organisms benefit from the relationship.

An example of mutualism would be bees pollinating flowering plants.  The bees get nectar for making honey and the plants are pollinated.

Many people use the word symbiosis as a synonym for mutualism, but you know that symbiosis is a bigger concept than just mutualism.

What is mutualism?Slide19

Parasitism Parasitism is a living relationship where one organism benefits by the relationship at the expense or harm of the other.

An example of parasitism is the relationship between dogs, (or other animals) and ticks.

Another example would be the plant mistletoe. mistletoe is a parasite. Mistletoe lives by attaching itself to trees or shrubs and drawing nutrients from the sap of its host

.

What is parasitism?Slide20

 Amensalism

Amensalism is a symbiotic relationship where the central organism is neither harmed nor benefited, while other neighboring organisms are harmed often by a chemical produced by the central organism.

A well known example comes from the American black walnut tree which produces an allelopathic chemical that interferes with the growth of other plant that are near the black walnut tree.

What is amensalism?

There are

two basic types of amensalism

: competition, a stronger organism excludes a smaller or weaker one from living space or deprives it of food antibiosis

, in which one organism is unaffected but the other is damaged or killed by a chemical secretion.Slide21

Models Showing Flow of Energy Through Ecosystems: Food Chains and Food WebsFood Chains are simple models for explaining energy and matter’s movement via the feeding relationships, while food webs are more complex models of networks of food chains.Slide22

Biogeochemical Cycles (Nutrient Cycles) Nutrient cycles (aka. biogeochemical cycles) show how matter (often as one element) moves through the environment.

The carbon cycle is the key biogeochemical cycle in biology because the molecules that make living things are molecules that are held together with the element carbon.  Carbon-based molecules are also known as organic molecules. 

Notice how photosynthetic

autotrophs

and the feeding relationships are part of the carbon cycle.

What are biogeochemical cycles? What is the carbon cycle?Slide23

Concept of Scale in BiologyWe used the concept of scale to group organisms by their similarities with the taxonomic rankings

In Biology, we also use the concept of scale to organize the amount of matter or life being studied at once. This called the Levels of Organization. Slide24

Levels of Organization in Ecology

 I like to think of

Ecology as the BIG PICTURE of Biology

.  How organism fit into nature.  Ecology deals with the Big Picture of the levels of organization in biology by starting in the middle with individual organisms, then enlarges its view to populations, then expands again to communities then to biomes and ecosystems,  and finally to the largest scale that we talk about in biology the entire biosphere.

From

largest to smallestBiosphere Ecosystems BiomesCommunities Populations Individual Organism

Discuss the levels of organization in ecology.Slide25

Emergent Properties When a property (or trait) at one level of organization becomes a completely new trait as you change level of scale, the new property is called an emergent property.  

Example: Water

Water, (H

2

O) is made when 2 hydrogen atoms bond with an oxygen atom.

The molecule H2O has completely different properties than either hydrogen or oxygen . The properties of water emerge by changing the level of scale from atoms to molecules.

Note that emergent properties are an important part of applying and understanding the concept of scale in science, and therefore understanding science.

What are emergent properties?Slide26

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology1. Individual Organisms

An individual organism possesses all the characteristics of life; a living thing. 

Example: a zebra.  There are different types or species of zebras; we are referring to

Equus

quagga or the plains zebra. We can study a single Equus

quagga but to understand the zebra we must also study the interactions and interdependence it has with other Equus quagga  

Mating  Herd protection  Coloration

What is the most obvious characteristic or physical property of a zebra?Slide27

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)2. Population

Population: a group of organisms of one species that interbreed and live in the same place at the same time.

Example: a herd of

Equus

quaggaMembers of one population are diverse due to slight DNA mutations  This diversity means that some members of the population are better suited to win that competition while other members are less fit for survival.We call this diversity variation. 

Even though there is competition between members of a population, members of populations rely on each other for survival. 

Members of populations compete with each other when resources are scarce.  So , as grass becomes scarce these zebras will struggle against each other for survival.

Explain a biological population.Slide28

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)2. Population (cont.)

Earlier we discuss the most obvious characteristic of a zebra.

What do the stripes on a zebra become when you study a population of zebras?

An individual zebra has stripes a population of zebras have camouflage

.

Stripes on individual zebras becoming camouflage in a population of zebras is an example of an emergent property. Slide29

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)3. Community

Community is a collection of interacting populations.  We sometimes see the term  biocenosis (

biocoensis

is an alternative spelling) used to describe a collection of interacting populations in nature

. Example: a herd of elephants, a pride of lions, a herd of giraffes and a herd of wildebeest but also the populations of plants, bacteria, fungi and protist that all live together in the same habitat at the same time.

A change in one population in a community causes changes in the other populations of the community.  

A change  in the zebra population will effect the other populations in the Serengeti.   Example: the relationship between zebras and lions.

Let’ see this using predation as an example

Give an example of a biological community.Slide30

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)3. Community (cont.)

Lions, (

Panthera

leo) and Zebras, (Equus

quagga) have a predator/prey relationship.Here is a graph representing two populations, one predator the other prey.  Notice how a change in the density of one of the populations influences the density of the other population over time.

Explain a biological community.Slide31

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)4. Ecosystem

Ecosystems are a consideration of the interactions among populations in a community and the communities physical surroundings; or

abiotic

factors.

Example: the Serengeti Grass Plain of Tanzania Africa.

Here are a few more photos to give you a better idea of what this ecosystem is like.

Below are two NASA satellite pictures of the Serengeti taken at different times of the year.

What is an ecosystem?Slide32

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)4. Ecosystem (cont.)

Biomes

Biomes (another way to look at ecosystems)

Biomes are the world’s distinctive types of ecosystems.

Biomes are classified by the plant populations found in them. Biomes are known for unique climate and unique organisms that have evolved to better compete and survive in those climates. Examples of biomes:  Tundra

:  Arctic Tundra Alpine Tundra  Forest:  Boreal forest (Taiga),  Deciduous temperate forest, 

Tropical forest (jungle)  Desert:  hot dry desert,  semiarid desert,  cold desert. 

Grassland Savannah

Aquatic Freshwater

Aquatic Marine (Saltwater)

What are biomes? Give examples.Slide33

Details of the Levels of Organization in Ecology (cont.)5. Biosphere

The Biosphere is the portion of earth that can support life or possible ecosystems

.

The Earth’s atmosphere is in fact dependent on the biosphere for regulation. 

Water, oxygen, carbon, phosphorous and nitrogen are all cycled through the biosphere.

The atmosphere as we know it is a product of life.   The atmosphere is made by the biosphere, and life now depends on the atmosphere. They are interdependent. 

   Many of the elements that cycle in the earth’s systems pass through living things as part of nature’s cycle.

Scientists divide the earth into atmosphere (air), lithosphere (earth), hydrosphere (water), and biosphere (life).

What is the Biosphere?Slide34

Summary of the Levels of Organization in Ecology Individual organisms

Populations

Communities

Ecosystems

Biomes

BiosphereExplain this overview of the levels of organization in ecology.Slide35

Questions to Ponder from Lesson 1Part 1What is ecology?

Which is bigger: knowledge or science, science or biology, biology or ecology?

What is the

biosphere?

What do

biotic and abiotic meanWhat are the levels of organization in ecology?What are interactions and interdependence?

What is a population in ecology?

What is a species?What are herbavores, carnivores,

detritivores

, and omnivores?

What are predator and prey?

What is a food chain?

What is a food web? 

What is a biogeochemical cycle?

Answer 3 of these questions.Slide36

Questions to Ponder from Lesson 1 Part 2What are the levels of organization studied in biology?

What are the levels of organization studied in ecology?

What concept in science are we using when we divide biology or ecology into different levels of organization?

What do

biotic

and abiotic meanWhat are the differences between biology and ecology?

What are the differences between the levels of organization studied in  biology and in ecology?What are properties?

What are emergent properties? When do emergent properties emerge? 

In biology, what is meant be the term population?

What type of ecosystem is the Serengeti Plain?

Answer 3 of these questions