MODULE 7
COMMUNITY ROLES AND HABITAT
A community is an assemblage of all the interacting population of different species of
organisms in an area. Some species play minor roles while other play major roles but all are part of
the community. Every organism has a place to live in nature, a functional role in that place, and a
complex set of adaptations for reproducing its kind. On the surface, this observation might see to be
obvious, even trivial. We need to understand at a deep level how organisms interact with each other
and with their physical environment.
Producers (Autotrophs) are living things that can make food in the process of
photosynthesis.
Consumers (Heterotrophs) are organisms that do not produce their own food and depends
on organic matter.
Primary Herbivores are animals that eat plants or phytoplankton.
Secondary Consumers are:
Carnivores: Eat other animals.
Omnivores: Eat both plants and animals.
Scavenger: Eat meat from animals that died or killed by other animals.
Decomposers are organisms that feed on dead plants and animals.
Habitat is a specific place or natural conditions in which a plant or animals lives. There are four
essential things that organisms should have on its habitat or the reason why organisms still in
contact or dwell with its habitat.
1. Food 3. Water
2. Cover/Shelter, 4. Space
T The habitat of organisms has physical factors and biotic factors. Physical Factors involve
elevation, steepness, slope direction, soil type, and water availability. The biotic factors are grass,
shrubs, and herb species.
Fig. 7.1 Different Habitat of Organisms
Community roles are very important in order to balance the ecosystem. All those
three major ecological categories of organisms have its significance and they are all needed
for the survival of the community. These community roles interact with one another and all
these three are present in stable communities. Habitat is a place where living organism live.
Every population in a community has its special place. All living organisms have its own
habitats and this habitat supplies all of the biotic and abiotic factors necessary for the
survival of the population.
The roles of communities and habitat have a great function in an ecosystem. Just like
in human beings, we are all important and we have also roles in the community. Every
individual has its own habitat and many of us lives in a habitat where we can for find
ourselves more comfortable and safer. If we're going to relate yourself in the community
roles, we are the consumer, we need the producers like plants and animals that serve as food
in order for us to survive. Over all, living things and non-living things have its importance in
terms of survival and both of them play an important role to have a better society and a
better world.
7.1 Niches
In ecology, a niche is a term with a variety of meanings related to the behavior of a
species living under specific environmental conditions. The ecological niche describes how
an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for
example, by growing when resources are abundant, and when predators, parasites and
pathogens are scarce) and how it in turn alters those same factors (for example, limiting
access to resource by other Organisms, acting as a food source for predators and a
consumer of prey).
The type and number of variables comprising the dimensions of an environmental
niche vary from one species to another and the relative importance of particular
environmental variables for a species may vary according to the geographic and biotic
contexts.
Many scientists described ecological niche in different ways. Some of them are the
following:
Grinnellian niche
The ecological meaning of niche comes from the meaning of niche as a recess in a
wall for a statue, which itself is probably derived from the Middle French word 'nicher,
meaning 'to nest.'
The Grinnellian niche concept embodies the idea that the niche of a species is
determined by the habitat in which it lives and its accompanying behavioral adaptations. In
other words, the niche is the sum of the habitat requirements and behaviors that allow a
species to persist and produce offspring.
Eltonian Niche
In 1927 Charles Sutherland Elton, a British ecologist, defined a niche as follows:
"The 'niche' of an animal means its place in the biotic environment, its relations to food and
enemies."
Elton classified niches according to foraging activities ("food habits"). "For instance
there is the niche that is filled by birds of prey which eat small animals such as shrews and
mice. In an oak wood this niche is filled by tawny owls, while in the open grassland it is
occupied by kestrels. The existence of this carnivore niche is dependent on the further fact
that mice form a definite herbivore niche in many different associations, although the actual
species of mice may be quite different."
Hutchinsonian niche
The Hutchinsonian niche is an n-dimensional hyper volume, where the dimensions are
environmental conditions and resources that define the requirements of an individual or a species to
practice "its" way of life, more particularly, for its population to persist.
The niche concept was popularized by the zoologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson in.
1957. Hutchinson wanted to know why there are so many types of organisms in any one habitat.
MULTIPLE CHOICE: Read and analyze the question carefully. Write the letter of the
1. A specific place or natural conditions in which a plant or animals lives.
a. Habitat c. Biome
b. Community d. d., Population
2. A single type of living thing.
a. Endangered species c. Non living organism
b. Organism d. Ecosystem
3. Food, water, shelter, and space in which to live all described organisms.
a. Biome c. Community
b. Population d. Habitat
4. Living things that can make food in the process of photosynthesis?
a. Consumers c. Heterotrophs
b. Producers d. Decomposers
5. An organisms that feed on dead plants and animals.
a. Autotrophs c. Heterotrophs
b. Producers d. Decomposers
6. Organisms that do not produce their own food and depends on organic
a. Heterotropns c. Producers
b. Autotrophs d. Decomposers
7. Animals that eat plants or phytoplanktons are called
a. Carnivores c. Herbivores
b. Scavenger d. Omnivores
8. Animals that eat both plants and animals.
a. Omnivores c. Carnivores
b. Scavenger d. Herbivores
9. Lives in or on another organisms and get food from it.
a. Scavenger c. Omnivores
b. Parasite d. Consumer
10. All belong to community roles EXCEPT.
a. Producer c. Habitat
b. Consumer d. Decomposers
MODULE 8
FOOD CHAIN AND FOOD WEB
Food chain is the passage of energy in a community from one organism to another, or it can
be defined as a sequence of organisms related to one another as prey and predators. In an
ecosystem, we have to consider the kinds of organisms: the producers (autotrophs) and consumers
(heterotrophs).
The following are the different types of consumers.
Herbivores
- These are the animals that feed on plants are referred to as primary consumers.
Carnivores
- These are the animals that feed upon other animals are called secondary
Omnivores
- These are the animals that eat both plants and animals.
Detrivores
- These are organisms that utilize the wastes from all levels.
A simple food chain occurs in the following situation.
Beginning with the capture of sunlight by primary producers or the autotrophs: organism that can
synthesize its own food from inorganic substances using heat or light as a source of energy, energy
flows through food chains in a steady "one way stream."
As it flows, the energy is alternately stored and used to the life processes of animals through
which it moves.
The energy captured by producers and consumers or the heterotrophs: an organism which
requires an external supply of energy in the form of food as it cannot synthesize its own, is
temporarily stored until one organism eats another.
Each of the storage steps along a food chain is called a trophic level. The producers
represent the first trophic level; herbivores, occupy the second; carnivores that eat herbivores from
the third trophic level, and soon.
Can you give some examples of food chains? I know you can do it.
Food Web is a pattern of food chain that interlocks and forms a network. A food web is a
diagram of the links among species in an ecosystem - essentially who eats whats.
Below is example of simple food web, where the energy is transferred from one organism to
the next.
The primary consumers or first-order consumers are the rabbits, squirrels, mice, seed-eating
birds, and herbivores insects. They fed directly on plants which are the producers and most in
numbers. Commonly they are herbivores. The secondary consumers or the second-order
consumers are the foxes, owls, spiders, and predaceous insects. Usually they are carnivores. The
tertiary consumers or the third-order consumers are the insectivorous birds and toads. How
about the tertiary consumers that can fed on foxes and hawks or even owls? Can you name some
animals?
A food web represents an attempt to describe the numerous alternative food energy
pathways in a community, most of whose members have more than one choice of food. Similarly a
predator may feed on several different species and also a prey may be eaten by several different
predators.
Food web proves that we all need each other and no one will live in this world without the
help of one another. For example, we need oxygen to provide our daily lives. We need to study food
web for us to have the knowledge on how species relate to each other. It is also necessary to
understand how natural and man-made environmental pressures affect ecosystems.
I. Read and answer the following. Write the letter of your answer before the number.
1. Which animals feed on plants and referred to as primary consumers?
a. carnivores
b. herbivores
c. omnivores
d. detritivores
2. Which animals feed upon other animals and are called secondary consumers?
a. carnivores
b. herbivores
c. omnivores
d. detritivores
3. Which animals eat both plants and animals?
a. carnivores
b. herbivores
c. omnivores
d. detritivores
4. Which consumer utilizes the wastes from all levels?
a. carnivores
b. herbivores
c. omnivores
d. detritivores
5. What do you call the storage steps along a food chain?
a. trophic level
b. chain level
c. producer's level
d. ninth level
II. Answer the following correctly. Write your answer before the number.
____________________6. What organism requires an external supply of energy in the form of food as it
cannot synthesize its own and also called the consumers?
____________________7. What organism can synthesize its own food from inorganic substances using
heat or light as a source of energy and also called the primary producers?
____________________8. It is a system formed by an ecological community and its environment that
functions as a unit.
____________________9. The sequence of food transfer up the trophic levels.
____________________10. An organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple
molecules and an external source of energy.