Week 2

Chapter 4

Earth’s major components

 Lithosphere
o Upper zone of the earths mantle
o Mixture of rocks and mineral
matter
 Hydrosphere
o Crust of the earth
o Liquid, frozen and gaseous
o Surface waters
 Ex. ocean, lakes, rivers,
swamps
 Moisture that is in living
organisms
 Atmosphere
o Surrounds the solid and liquid
earth
 Troposphere
o Lowest layer of the atmosphere
o Most weather events occur
 Stratosphere
o Protects the earths surface by
absorbing most incoming solar
ultraviolet radiation
 Ozone layer
o Band of pure gas surrounding the globe at sea-level pressure and temperature
 Biosphere
o Plant and animal organisms along with their interactions with each other and the
atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere

Connections on Earth
 3 passive and interconnected factors
o Energy flow, matter cycling, and gravity
 Cycling critical elements such as carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, water and oxygen
 Photosynthesis
o 0.023% of total energy reaching the atmosphere each day is captured by living
things
 Open system
o Continuously receiving and using energy from the sun and radiating waste heat
into space

Ecology
  Study of interactions of living organisms with one another and with their nonliving
environment of matter and energy
 High degree of organization
o Atoms are organized into molecules which are organized into cells then tissues
then organs then body systems then create organisms
 An individual organism is a single member of a species
 Species
o Group of organisms that resemble one another in appearance, behaviour, chemical
makeup and processes and genetic structure and that produce fertile offspring
under natural conditions
 Population
o A group of individual of the same species living and interacting in the same
geographic area at the same time
 Genetic diversity
o Slightly different behaviours and appearances
 Habitat
o Place where organism lives
 Community
o Different species interact
 Ecosystem
o Community and its members interacting with each other and with their nonliving
environment of matter and energy
 Biome
o Distinctive climate and soil conditions and distinctive communities of plants,
animals and microorganisms adapted to those conditions
o Canada has 5 terrestrial biomes
 Tundra, boreal forest, temperate deciduous and rain forest, grassland,
mountain complexes
o Both aquatic biomes
 Fresh water and marine

Biodiversity
 Genetic diversity
o Variation in genetic makeup among individuals within a single species
 Species diversity
o Number of different species and their relative abundance in different habitats on
earth
 Ecological diversity
o Variety of biological communities that interact with one another and with their
physical and chemical (nonliving) environments
 Biocapital
 Human cultural diversity
o Same as genetic material contained within other living species provides for future
adaptability so might the variety of human cultures represent our adaptability and
survival options in the face of changing conditions
Types of organisms
 Prokaryotic
o Lack of nuclear envelope and other internal cell membranes
o Own kingdom, prokaryotae
 Eukaryotic
o High degree of internal organization
 A nucleus and several other internal parts enclosed by membranes
o Fungi kingdom
 Secrete digestive enzymes into their food then absorb the predigested
nutrients
 Mushrooms and yeasts
o Plantae kingdom
 Use radiant energy to manufacture food molecules by the photosynthesis
 Ferns, conifers and flowering plants
o Animalia
 Invertebrates
 Spiders, jellyfish, worms
 No backbone
 Vertebrates
 Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds
 Have backbone

Components and structure of ecosystems

 Biotic
o Plants and animals
o Living
 Abiotic
o Non living
 Water, air, solar energy
 Sunlight
o Source of energy that powers almost all life precesses on earth
o Producers or autotrophs
 Are self nourishing organisms that performs photosynthesis
 Using solar energy convert simple inorganic substance such as water,
carbon dioxide and nutrients into complex chemicals such as
carbohydrates, lipids and proteins
 Bacteria (chemotrophs)
o Convert energy in the inorganic chemical compounds in aquatic and other
environments without sunlight
o Use chemosynthesis
 Consumers or heterophs
o Eat cells, tissues, or waste products of other organisms
o Unable to make their own food, they live at expense of other plants and animals
 Macroconsumers
 o Feed by ingesting particles, parts, or entire bodies of other organisms
o Herbivores or primary consumers
 Plant eater
 Deer
o Carnivores or secondary consumers
 Meat eaters
 Bobcats or snakes
o Omnivores
 Both plant and meat
 Black bears, pigs
o Tertiary consumers
 Carnivores that eat secondary consumers
 Hawks
 Many heterotrophs consume dead organic material
o Those that eat the entire dead organisms are called scavengers
o Ex. vultures and hyenas
 Detrivores or detritus feeders
o Ingest fragments of dead or decaying tissues or organic wastes
o Earth worms, shrimp, dung beetles, maggots
 Microconsumers or decomposer organisms
o Live on or within their food source, completing the final breakdown and recycling
of the complex molecules in detritus into simpler compounds
o Play major role in returning nutrients to the physical environment providing an
important source of food for worms and insects in the soil and water
o Without these the earth would be covered in plant litter, dead animal bodies,
animal wastes and garbage
o Energy released by aerobic respiration
 Uses oxygen to convert nutrients such as glucose back into carbon dioxide
and water

Tolerance ranges of species

 Law of tolerance
o Presence, number and distribution of a species in an ecosystem are determined by
whether the levels of one or more physical or chemical factors fall within range
tolerated by the species
 Least tolerance is during the juvenile or reproductive stages of an organisms life cycle
 Highly tolerant species can live in a range of habitats with different conditions and other
species can adjust their tolerance to physical factors such as temperature
 Acclimation
o Adjustment to slowly changing conditions
 Threshold effect
o The species reaching its limit

Limiting factors in ecosystems

 Limiting factor principle
 o Asserts that too much or too little of any abiotic factor can limit or prevent growth
of a population even if all other factors are at or near the optimum range of
tolerance
 Land limiting factors
o Precipitation, humidity, wind, temperature, light and shade, fire, salinity, available
space, and soil
 Aquatic limiting factor
o Salinity
 The amount of various salts dissolved in given volume of water
o Dissolved oxygen content
 The amount of oxygen gas dissolved in a given volume of water at a
particular temperature and pressure
o Availability of nutrients

Types of species in ecosystems

 Endemic species
o Normally live and thrive in a particular ecosystem
 Immigrant or exotic species
o Migrate into or are introduced into an ecosystem deliberately or accidentally, by
humans
 Indicator species
o Such as lichens, neotropical migratory songbirds, and amphibians may provide
early warnings of environmental damage to communities or ecosystems
 Keystone species
o Bees, bats, hummingbirds
o Crucial role in tropical forests by pollinating flowering plants, dispersing seeds or
both
o Top preditors are keystone species because they exert a stabilizing influence on
their ecosystems by feeding on and regulating the populations of certain other
species
 Sea otters feed on sea urchins

Ecological Niche
 The way an organism interacts with other living things and with its physical environment
defines that organisms ecological niche
 Includes all the environmental condition an organism or species needs to live, interact,
reproduce and adapt in an ecosystem
 Specialist species
o Narrow niches
 Only live in one type of habitat, eat a few types of food only, or tolerate a
narrow range
 Basically Nolan
 Generalist species
o Broad niches
 Able to live in many different places while tolerating a wide range of
environmental conditions
  Humans are generalist species + flies, mice, racoons, whitetail deer

Interactions among species

 Types of Interactions are
o Competition, predation
 Forms of symbiosis
o Parasitism, mutualism and commensalism
 Fundamental niche
o Full range of physical chemical and biological factors each species could use if
there was no competition from other species
 Interspecific competition
o Which parts of the fundamental niches of different species overlap significantly
o Since no 2 species can occupy the same niche in the same community indenitetly,
one species may occupy more of its fundamental nich than the other species as a
result of competition between them
 Competitive exclusion principle