ECOLOGY
Biology 20 – Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION TO
ECOLOGY
Topic 1
WHAT DO ALL ORGANISMS NEED TO STAY ALIVE
AND WHY?
All organisms need energy to stay alive. They
use this energy to grow, maintain body
processes, and reproduce. Many kinds of
organisms require energy to move, as well.
WRITE OUT THE BALANCED CHEMICAL EQUATION FOR CELLULAR RESPIRATION AND
PHOTOSYNTHESIS:
Producers
• Producers (Autotrophs)
• organisms who use light
energy to create
sugars through photosynthesis
• “Autotrophs” – self-feeders
• produce organic compounds that will
serve as food for other organisms
• relyon sunlight, water and nutrients from the
soil and air
Consumers
•Consumers
(Heterotrophs)
•organisms that rely on
producers as a food
source
• “Heterotrophs” – other
feeders
Chemosynthetic
organisms
• A special type of autotroph (producer)
• Convert energy from chemical bonds into stored
biological energy
• They produce much less energy, but allow life to
exist in extreme environments on earth
• E.g.
• Bacteria in the deep ocean where there is no
light
• Hydrogen sulphide sulphuric acid +
energy
• Bacteria in the soil
• Ammonia nitrogen compounds + energy
Primary Consumers
• Primary Consumers
• rely directly on producers for food
• calledherbivores
• Only eat plants, bacteria, algae, and any other
organisms that are autotrophs
• E.g.
algae, plankton, some insects, snails, birds,
mammals, clams, tubeworms, mussels
Secondary consumers
• Secondary consumers
• feed on primary consumers
• eat herbivores
• E.g. Spiders, frogs, insect-eating birds
• can be an omnivore or a carnivore
• An omnivore will feed on both plants and animals
depending on availability and opportunity
• carnivores are organisms that kill and eat other
animals
• most carnivores are animals, but there are a few
carnivorous plants
Tertiary consumers
• Tertiary consumers
• feed on secondary consumers
• usually the top predator in the ecosystem
• “top of the food chain”
• generally carnivorous
• E.g.,
Wild cats, giant crabs, tuna, many
humans
Other roles
• Scavengers
• an animal that feeds on dead and decaying animals it did
not kill itself
• Most scavengers will only obtain food this way as a last
resort and act as consumers most other times
• E.g. vultures, hyenas, wild dogs.
• Decomposers
• organisms that break down decaying organic matter into
simpler molecules
• return organic material to the soil
• E.g. Bacteria, earthworms, some insects
Energy in the Biosphere
• the
total amount of energy and matter in the
Universe remains constant
• 1stlaw of Thermodynamics: energy cannot be
created or destroyed, only transferred from one
form to another
• 2nd law of Thermodynamics: Energy
conversion is not 100% efficient.
• Each time energy is converted some is dispersed or
“lost” to sound, heat, etc.
Flow of Energy
• For
an ecosystem to
survive
• energy must flow from one
form to another
• energy flows into an
ecosystem as solar energy
• most energy flows out of an
ecosystem in the form of heat
Trophic Levels
• Trophiclevel = feeding
level within an
ecosystem
• “Trophic” = food
• Energyis transferred
from one trophic level to
the next
Food Chain
• Food chains
• show the flow
of energy from
producer through to all levels
of consumers
• Show a linear pathway
through which food is
transferred to higher trophic
levels
Food Web
• Food web
• A more complex and more
accurate model that tracks
food/energy transfer in an
ecosystem
• give a more detailed account of
the interactions between species
• food webs are made of several
food chains that interconnect
Energy Pyramids
• anenergy pyramid divides up all the
species in an ecosystem based on their
energy source
• eachstep in the energy pathway
corresponds to a level on the pyramid
called a trophic level
• energy conversions are never very
efficient
• moving from one level to the next
results in most of the energy being
“lost” as wasted heat energy.
Rule of 10
• Only about 10% of the energy at any level is
available is passed on to the next level
• the rest of the energy (90%) isn’t destroyed – it
is “lost” to the environment as heat
• therefore each trophic level requires a greater
volume of food to obtain the necessary energy
• example:
• a grasshopper consumes about 0.1g of
grass a day
• a peregrine falcon consumes about 500g
of other birds a day
Pyramid of Numbers
• A pyramid of numbers compares the number
of individuals in each trophic level
• bear in mind that the size of the individual
organisms matters
• Typically as you move up the pyramid the size of the
organisms increases, but the number of them decreases.
• However in some cases you can have 1 large organism
supporting the rest of the pyramid (e.g. large tree) which
results in a wonky looking pyramid
• the important point to note is that it takes about
a million producers to sustain two top
consumers
• this puts the tertiary consumers in an ecologically fragile
situation
• most endangered species are near the top of the pyramid
Pyramid of Biomass
• Theactual amount of energy in each
trophic level can be difficult to measure
accurately
•Abiomass pyramid compares the dry
mass of all organisms for each level
• We specify “dry” because water contains no
usable energy
• Usually expressed in grams/square meter
(g/m2)
Albedo
• Different surfaces reflect and absorb a different amount of radiation.
• Albedo measures the % of solar radiation that a surface reflects.
• Light-colored, shiny surfaces like snow reflect more (higher Albedo %)
• Darker, duller surfaces like forests and soil reflect less (lower Albedo %)
• Snow covered regions and the Sahara desert (with no forest) will have a high
albedo.
•Some of the radiant energy that hits earths is absorbed
in the atmosphere by clouds and gases.
•The absorption of thermal energy from the gases in the
atmosphere is called the Natural Greenhouse Effect
and keeps earth warm enough for life.
•Green house gases are gases in the atmosphere that
absorb this thermal energy