Ch. 50-Ecology

Erik Kurtz, Ally Mann, Kristina Martin

Abiotic Factors

• Non-living factors• Chemical and physical factors• Examples: temperature, light, and nutrients• Major abiotic factors

Biotic Factors

• Living organisms that are apart of an individuals environment

Levels of Ecology

Organismal Ecology

• The behavioral, physiological, and morphological ways that an organism meets challenges posed by their abiotic environment.

Population Ecology

• Factors that affect population size and composition.

Community Ecology

• Interactions among organisms, such as predation, competition, and disease, that affects community structure and organization.

Ecosystem Ecology

• Concerns energy flow and the cycling of chemicals among the various biotic and abiotic components.

Landscape Ecology

• Deals with an array of ecosystems and how they are arranged in a geographic region.

Global Ecology

• Includes atmosphere, and rocks beneath the ground

• Looks at the world as a whole with patterns• Major abiotic factors:– Temperature, water, sunlight, wind, rocks and soil,

and periodic disturbances

Abiotic factors that affect…

• Climate• Biotic factors

Climate

• Temperature• Water• Sunlight• Wind• Latitudinal variation

Biome

• Water• Temperature• Rocks and soil• Sunlight• Wind• Mountains

Global/macroclimate vs. microclimate

• Global abiotic factors:– Temperature, water, sunlight, wind, rocks and soil,

periodic disturbances• Macroclimate:– Local, regional, or global climates

• Microclimate:– Very small pattern underneath rocks, etc., affected

by the macroclimate

Air cells and biomes

• Temperature, wind, water, and sunlight• Air cells:– Sunlight causes warm air at equator to rise, air cools,

and drops large amounts of water over tropics– Dry are moves and cools towards poles, absorb

water from land, and releases water around 30 degrees altitude north and south

– This creates three air circulation cells on either side of equator

Rainshadow effect

• Temperature, wind, and water• Rainshadow effect:– Mountains push moister-laden air up– The air cools, and moisture condenses– Heavy rainfall on the side of the mountain– Dry air absorbs moisture on other side– Creates dry climate on the other side (desert)

Various aquatic and terrestrial biomes

• Aquatic biomes:– Oligotrophic lake, eutrophic lake, stream flowing

into river, wetlands, estuary, coral reif, intertidal, benthos

• Terrestrial biomes:– Tropical forest, Savanna, Desert, Chaparral,

Temperate grassland, Temperate deciduous forest, Coniferous forest, Tundra

Lake Turnover

Organismal Ecology concepts…

Regulators vs. conformers

• Regulators– Organisms that use behavioral and physiological

mechanisms to achieve homeostasis in the face of environmental fluctuations in temperature, moisture, light intensity, and concentrations of a variety of chemical factors.

• Conformers– Those that are in relatively stable environments, that

allow some conditions within their bodies to vary with external changes.

Principle of allocation

• This principle states that each organisms has a limited amount of energy that can be used for obtaining nutrients, escaping from predators, coping with environmental fluctuations (maintaining homeostasis), growth, and reproduction. Energy that has already been used, is not available for other functions.

Acclimation and response to environment

• Acclimation:– Involves substantial but reversible changes that

shift an organism’s tolerance curve in the direction of the environmental change

• Responses:– Behavioral, morphological, and physiological