ECO - Ecology [OVERVIEW]
Ecology
Introduction
In this module, you will examine the relationships between organisms and their surrounding environment. Organisms require a combination of timing and coordination of various mechanisms to maintain homeostasis, grow, and reproduce in their environment. The topics in this module include ecology, biodiversity, and disruptions to ecosystems. Ecosystems that have more biodiversity will be able to withstand more pressures from disruptions. To study energy flow and trophic levels within an ecosystem, food chains and webs with arrows are used to demonstrate and indicate the flow of energy and the relationships between organisms.
The topics in this module will help you build on your science practice skills by predicting the causes and effects of disruptions to an ecosystem, evaluating experimental designs, and gathering and using data to assess hypotheses. You will also identify experimental procedures, including questions aligned to the experiment, variables, methods, measurements, and data collection methods.
List of Lessons
In this module, we will study the following topics:
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- Responses to the Environment – this lesson will discuss the behavioral and physiological responses of organisms to their environments.
- Energy Flow – this lesson focuses on energy movement through the ecosystem, strategies used to acquire and transfer energy, and how the amount of energy changes throughout.
- MATH: Population Ecology – this lesson will discuss the two types of population growth and how to calculate the change in population over time.
- Community Ecology – this lesson focuses on relationships between living parts of the ecosystem, with both short term and long term interactions.
- Biodiversity – this lesson describes the relationship between diversity of the ecosystem and stability.
- Disruptions – this lesson covers invasive species, human activities, and other disruptions to the environment.
Module Objectives
By the end of this module, students will be able to:
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- Explain how the genetic diversity of a species or population affects its ability to withstand environmental pressures.
- Explain how the behavioral and/or physiological response of an organism is related to changes in internal or external environment.
- Explain how the behavioral responses of organisms affect their overall fitness and may contribute to the success of the population.
- Describe the strategies organisms use to acquire and use energy.
- Explain how changes in energy availability affect populations and ecosystems.
- Explain how the activities of autotrophs and heterotrophs enable the flow of energy within an ecosystem.
- Describe factors that influence growth dynamics of populations.
- Explain how the density of a population affects and is determined by resource availability in the environment.
- Describe the structure of a community according to its species composition and diversity.
- Explain how interactions within and among populations influence community structure.
- Explain how community structure is related to energy availability in the environment.
- Describe the relationship between ecosystem diversity and its resilience to changes in the environment.
- Explain how the addition or removal of any component of an ecosystem will affect its overall short-term and long-term structure.
- Explain the interaction between the environment and random or preexisting variations in populations.
- Explain how invasive species affect ecosystem dynamics.
- Describe human activities that lead to changes in ecosystem structure and/or dynamics.
- Explain how geological and meteorological activity leads to changes in ecosystem structure and/or dynamics.
Key Terms
Monomer – one repeating unit (building block) of a polymer.
Abiotic factors - the nonliving factors such as temperature, light, and water.
Air pollution - caused mostly by burning fossil fuels, which causes particulates to fill the air.
Aphotic Zone - layer of ocean with little to no light available for photosynthesis.
Biodiversity - measure of the number and frequency of various species in an ecosystem.
Biosphere - part of the world in which life can exist; the earth.
Biotic factors - all of the living things, or organisms present in a particular environment.
Birth rate - number of individuals born in an area over a given time period. If more are born than die, the birth rate increases. If the birth rate equals the death rate, the population size stays the same over time.
Carbon Cycle - framework for cycling organic molecules through living things.
Carrying capacity - maximum number of individuals that an ecosystem is capable of supporting.
Climate - consists of temperature, precipitation, sunlight, and wind, all abiotic factors, so it is no surprise that climate influences ecological interactions.
Climax community - mature ecosystem.
Commensalism - interaction between species in which one benefits and the other is not affected.
Community Ecology - examination of species interaction and influence on community structure and organization.
Community - all the organisms that inhabit a particular area.
Competition - occurs when the organisms of the same or different species attempt to use an ecology resource in the same place at the same time.
Competitive exclusion - one species may have a competitive advantage over the other species, and may over time result in the complete elimination of the species.
Conservation biology - integration of ecology, physiology, molecular biology, genetics, and evolutionary biology to conserve biological diversity and important ecological habitats.
Coral Reefs - formed from the skeleton of living and nonliving coral in the photic zone of tropical marine environments; high diversity but sensitive to temperature and chemical change.
Death rate - number of individuals that die in an area over a given time period. If more die than are born, the death rate increases.
Density-dependent limiting factors - limiting factors that depend on population size.
Density-independent limiting factors - limiting factors that do not depend on population size.
Diversity - the variety of living things present on the earth
Ecological niche - sum of a species' use of biotic and abiotic resources in its environment.
Ecology - the study of the interactions between organisms and the nonliving components of their environment.
Ecosystem diversity - the variety of ecosystems within the biosphere.
Ecosystem Ecology - study of energy flow and cycling of chemicals, nutrients, and matter between organisms and the environment.
Emigration - number of individuals moving out of an area over a given period of time.
Energy - capacity to cause change or do work.
Estuaries - regions near the ocean shores where fresh water flows into salt water.
Exponential growth - occurs when the individuals of a population reproduce at a constant rate.
Fundamental niche - range of conditions that a species can potentially tolerate and the range of resources it can potentially use.
Generalists - species with broad niches; they can tolerate a range of conditions and use a variety of resources.
Geographic distribution - the area inhabited by a population.
Global warming/ climate change - a temperature rise caused by combination of different greenhouse gasses such as methane and carbon dioxide will continue until the earth becomes uninhabitable.
Habitat - where the organism lives
Immigration - number of individuals moving into an area over a given period of time.
Keystone species - organisms that have a pivotal niche in the community and without their presence the community would deteriorate.
K-Strategist Species - strong competitors in crowded niches, and invest more heavily in fewer offspring, each of which has a relatively high probability of surviving to adulthood.
Logistic growth - a realistic growth curve that most populations exhibit because resources are limited in any population and populations cannot just grow limitlessly as shown in the exponential model.
Mutualism - a symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit.
Natural resources - part of natural environment that is used by living things to sustain life.
Nitrogen Cycle - the cycling of nitrogen in organic and inorganic forms for effective biosynthesis of macromolecules.
Nonrenewable resources - are those that are available in limited amounts, such as fossil fuels and metals such as gold, silver, and copper.
Organismal Ecology - study of organismal structure, physiology, and behavior related to its environment.
Parasitism - a symbiotic interaction in which one organism benefits at the expense of the other organism.
Phosphorus Cycle - a series of long term and short term cycling of phosphorus throughout the environment.
Pollution - introduction of harmful substances into the environment, by air, land, or water.
Population density - the number of individuals in a population in a given area at a specific time.
Population Ecology - analysis of factors that influence population size and evolution.
Population - a group of organisms of the same species, living in the same place, at the same time and can successfully interbreed.
Predation - an interaction in which one organism captures and feeds on another organism.
Primary Succession - occurs where there has never before been an ecosystem; for example, a volcano erupts spreading lava; over time the lava weathers and soil formation begins.
Realized niche - range of resources a species actually uses for that particular environment.
Renewable resources - those that can be replaced or recycled by natural processes, such as plants, animals, crops, soil, wind, solar, geothermal power, and even water, if carefully managed.
R-Strategist Species - exploit less-‐crowded ecological niches, and produce many offspring, each of which has a relatively low probability of surviving to adulthood.
Secondary Succession - the re-population of an area after its destruction due to natural or man-made causes.
Sustainability - capability to endure; the ability of the ecosystem to remain diverse and productive through time.
Symbiosis - any relationship where two or more species live in direct and intimate contact.
Water Cycle - movement of water between different reservoirs on the earth, underground, and in the atmosphere.
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