Ecology

• Ecology is the study of interactions between plants, living things and the environment which they live
• Ecosystem is a system formed by a group of living things that interact with each other and their non living surroundings
• sunlight is the energy from the sun needed for photosynthesis
• photosynthesis is the process in which plants and some algae produce their own food in the form of glucose
• consumer / heterotroph is the name given to living things that can't photosynthesis
• producer / autotroph is the name given to organisms that can photosynthesis
• commensalism - when members of 2 species interacts: one benefits and the other is not affected
• mutualism - when 2 species interact and they both benefit
• parasitism - when a member of 1 species benefits at the expense of another organism
• competition (within species) - when 2 members of the same species compete for the same resource
• predation - when one organism kills and eats another
• competition (between species) - when 2 individuals of different species compete for the same resource
• predator-prey graph

  • the peak of the prey graph is always higher than the predator graph
  • the peak in the predator graph always come after the peak in the prey graph
• adaptions are features that an organism has that help it to survive
• structural - physical features
• behavioural - how an organism behaves
• functional - how an organism functions
• endotherms are animals that generate their own heat from within their body
• ectotherms have to get their heat from their environment
• biotic is something living or once living
• abiotic is something in a habitat that is never living
• decomposer is an organism that obtain their nutrients by breaking down the dead bodies of other organisms and return nutrients to the soil
• detritivore is an animal which feeds on dead organic material, especially plant matter. different to a decomposer because they eat the organic matter
• habitat is where an organism lives at a given time
• environment is all of the factors in an organism's surroundings that affect the organism
• population is all of the individuals of one species that live in the one habitat
• community is all of the living organisms in an ecosystem
• a food chain is a representation of the flow of energy in an ecosystem
• Food chain

  • start with producer
  • convert energy of the sun via photosynthesis into a form that consumers can use
  • the arrows point in the way that the energy is floating
• Trophic level

  • 1st order consumer - species that eats the producer
  • 2nd order consumer - species that eats the 1st order consumer
• herbivore is an animal that eats plants
• carnivore is an animal that eats meat
• omnivore is an animal that eats both plants and meat
• top predator is the spices that sits at the top of the food web and doesn't have any natural predators
• biodiversity / species diversity considers both the number of species present and the relative abundance of the species
• ecosystems with high species diversity have greater conservation value
• ecosystems with high biodiversity are less likely to be affected by environmental change

  • harder for introduced species to take over
  • alternative food sources if one species fails