People and the Earth's Ecosystem

• Ecologists classify matter into levels of organization ranging from the atomic level to the level of the biosphere.
• Ecologists study interactions within and among five levels of organization: organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and the biosphere.
• The earth’s life support system consists of four major components: the atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), geosphere (rock, soil, sediment), and biosphere (living things).
• The goal of ecology is to understand the interactions that occur within this thin layer of air, water, soil, and organisms.
• Environment is everything around us excluding you.
• Ecology is the science that focuses on organism interaction with their environment.
• Ecosystem is a unit of nature, consisting of all the biotic and abiotic factors in an area and their interaction.
• Organisms are individual living things.
• Biotic factors are the living aspects of the environment.
• Abiotic factors are the nonliving aspects of the environment.
• Producers are organisms capable of photosynthesis and is the foundation of the food chain.
• Consumers are herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.
• Decomposers are bacteria, fungi, and certain insects, such as beetles and worms.
• Types of ecosystems include aquatic, marine, freshwater, lentic, lotic, wetlands, terrestrial, desert, grassland, tundra, and forest.
• Four laws of ecology are: everything is connected to everything else, everything must go somewhere, nature knows best, and there’s no such thing as a free meal.
• Species is a group of organisms with the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
• Species richness is the number of different species in a community.
• Biodiversity is all the different kinds of life you’ll find in one area, including animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms like bacteria.
• The earth is divided into different zones based on temperature, precipitation, and vegetation.