ORGANISMS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT
KEY ECOLOGICAL TERMS
(a) Ecology
● Ecology (from Greek: οikos meaning home, and logos, meaning study of) is the study of the
relationships that living organisms have with each other and with their environment.
● It is the study of how living organisms interact with each other and with their physical and
chemical environment.
● Ecology is the study of the abundance, diversity, and distribution of organisms in nature,
the interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment, and the
movement and flux of energy and nutrients in the environment.
(b) Species
● A group of organisms with similar characteristics and can interbreed to produce fertile
offspring.
(c) Population
• A population is the number of organisms of the same species living in the same area at the
same time.
• It is a group of individuals of the same species living and interbreeding within a given area
at the same time.
● For example: All African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Hwange National Park in 2018.
• The number of African cat fish (Clarias gariepinus) in a pond in 2018.
• Members of the same population are more likely to interact with other members of the
same population than they are with members of a different population of the same species
living in a different place.
• They often rely on the same resources, are subject to similar environmental constraints,
and depend on the availability of other members to persist over time.
(d) Community
● An association of populations of different species that live and interact in the same place at
the same time.
● It is a collection of organisms of different species living in the same area.
● For example; all the foxes, acacia, grasshoppers, snakes, hawks, deer, and grasses, etc,
living in one area make up a community.
● Communities vary greatly in size, lack precise boundaries, and are rarely completely isolated,
with smaller communities nested within larger communities.
(e) Ecosystem
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● An ecosystem is a self-contained system of interdependent organisms and their physical
environment.
● It consists of both organisms and their complete biotic and a-biotic environment found in a
particular place.
● Ecosystem is perhaps the most widely used term in ecology.
● There are many examples of ecosystems- a pond, a lake, a forest, grassland. Smaller
ecosystems are nested in larger ones.
● A forest is a community, but so is a rotting log in that forest.
● Insects, plants, and fungi invade a fallen tree as it undergoes decay.
● Termites and other wood boring insects forge tunnels through the bark and wood.
● Other insects, plant roots, and fungi follow and enlarge these openings.
● Mosses and lichens on the log’s surface trap rainwater and extract minerals, and fungi and
bacteria speed decay, providing nutrients for other inhabitants.
● In ecosystems, living organisms continually interact with one another and with their
environment to create complex systems with different emergent properties.
(f) Habitat
● A habitat is a place where an organism lives.
● It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that
surrounds, influences and is utilized by an organism.
COMPONENTS OF AN ECOSYSTEM
● Every ecosystem is made up of two components:
1. Biotic components.
2. Abiotic components.
Abiotic Components
● These are the non-living components of an ecosystem.
● They include light, radiation, temperature, atmosphere gases (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon
dioxide are the most important), water, wind, soil (edaphic) and physiographic (nature of
land surface) factors.
● Abiotic components influence the abundance and distribution of biotic components of an
ecosystem.
Biotic Components
● These are the living components of an ecosystem.
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Producers
● Producers are also called autotrophs (auto = self; trophos = to feed).
● These are mainly plants which can carry out photosynthesis.
● They make food for themselves and indirectly for other organisms.
● They capture light energy and convert it into chemical energy.
CONSUMERS
● Consumers are organisms that cannot make their own food and must feed on other
organisms.
● They are also called heterotrophs (hetero = other or different; trophos = to feed).
● They include herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, saprophytes and parasites.
● All animals and certain types of micro-organisms are heterotrophs.
● These organisms must take in, or ingest, food containing already made organic nutrients
from plants or other animals.
● There are a number of types of consumers depending on their source of food.
(a) Primary Consumers
● These are herbivores and feed only on plants or plant products.
● On land, herbivores include insects, reptiles, birds and mammals.
● Rabbits, cattle, horses, sheep and deer are all herbivores.
● In aquatic ecosystems, herbivores include small crustaceans, such as water fleas, crab
larvae, barnacles and molluscs.
● Together with protozoans, many of them form the zooplankton.
Secondary, Tertiary and other Top Consumers
● Secondary, tertiary and quaternary consumers are flesh eaters or carnivores.
● Carnivores are animals that feed on other animals.
● Carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary consumers.
● Carnivores that eat secondary consumers are called tertiary consumers.
● Carnivores can also be classified as predators or scavengers.
● Predators hunt and kill other animals for food.
● Animals like lions, wolves, snakes, and sharks are all predators. Scavengers or carrion
feeders are animals that feed on the dead bodies of other organisms.
● Animals such as vultures and hyenas are scavengers.
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● Scavengers eat the food that has been killed and left behind by predators.
● Omnivores are animals that feed on both plants and animals.
● Examples of omnivores are humans, pigs, hens and bears.
Detritivores and Decomposers
● Another important group of heterotrophs are decomposers and detritivores.
● Detritivores feed on detritus, non-living organic material such as the remains of dead
organisms, faeces, fallen leaves, and wood.
● They include earthworms, crabs, mites and snails.
● Decomposers are saprophytic organisms that break down or decay organic matter.
• They release enzymes onto the dead or waste organic material.
• These enzymes digest the waste and the decomposer absorbs the nutrients.
● In this way, decomposers recycle nutrients in ecosystems.
● They convert dead organisms into organic matter to be used by the producers.
● Bacteria and fungi are decomposers.
ENERGY FLOW
● Energy enters most ecosystems in the form of sunlight.
● It is converted to chemical energy by autotrophs, passed to heterotrophs in the organic
compounds of food, and lost to the environment as heat.
● Energy flows through ecosystems.
● The principal source of energy for any ecosystem is the sun.
● Chemical elements are also cycled among non-living and living components of the ecosystem.
● The movements of energy and matter through ecosystems are related because both occur
by the transfer of substances through feeding relationships.
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FOOD CHAINS
● A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass as
one organism eats another.
● It is a linear sequence of organisms showing the transfer of energy from one organism to
the next.
● A food chain is a feeding hierarchy in which organisms in an ecosystem are grouped into
trophic (feeding) levels and are shown in a succession to represent the flow of food
energy and the feeding relationships between them.
• In a food chain, each organism occupies a different trophic level.
• A trophic level is a feeding level.
• It is the position occupied by an organism in a food chain.
• The directional flow of materials and energy from one organism to another is graphically
represented by arrows.
• Thus arrows in a food chain represent energy flow or energy transfer.
• Energy is transferred between organisms in a food chain through feeding.
• A food chain always starts with a producer.
• Decomposers are not normally included in a food chain as they feed on every trophic level.
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● Food chains are rarely more than 4 or 5 trophic levels long.
● This is because energy is lost at each trophic level in a food chain.
● Not all light energy from the sun is converted to chemical energy by autotrophs.
● Some of the light energy is reflected back by leaves.
● Some of the light energy is transmitted through the leaves.
● Some of the energy is not of the correct wave length for photosynthesis.
● Only 3 to 5 % of the energy from the sun is converted into chemical energy by producers
during photosynthesis.
● Not all the chemical energy stored in producers is passed on to primary consumers.
● Some of the energy is lost during plant respiration as heat.
● Some of the energy is used in plants; for example during active uptake of minerals.
● Some parts of the plant such as roots are also not eaten by herbivores.
● Further, plant material is usually very difficult to digest so some energy is lost in faeces.
● Only 10 % of the energy in producers is passed on to primary consumers.
● When a herbivore eats a plant, only 10 % of the energy that it gets from the plant food
becomes new body mass.
● When a primary consumer is eaten by a secondary consumer, only 10 % of the energy
becomes useful to the secondary consumer and is available to the next trophic level.
● The rest (90 %) is lost.
● The energy losses are due to:
⮚ Uneaten parts (bones, fur, horns, hooves etc).
⮚ Heat to the environment.
⮚ Respiration.
⮚ Movement of the organism.
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⮚ Egestion of waste in urine and faeces.
⮚ Maintenance of a constant body temperature
● Because of the large amount of energy that is lost at each trophic level, the amount of
energy that is transferred gets lesser and lesser.
• There cannot be too many trophic levels in a single food chain because the animals at the
end of the chain would not get enough food (and hence energy) to stay alive.
• Because of energy losses at each trophic level, it is better for man to feed on plants than on
consumers.
• They get more energy from feeding directly from plants rather than from primary
consumers.
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● It is important to note that simple food chains are inaccurate in describing the complex
feeding relationships that occur in ecosystems.
● Organisms rarely feed on one type of organism.
● Further, an organism may be food to different organisms.
● An organism can also occupy different trophic levels.
FOOD WEBS
• A food web is a network of interconnected food chains.
• It is a diagram that shows how food chains are linked together into complex feeding
relationships.
• Feeding connections in the web are called trophic links and represent energy flow.
• The number of trophic links per consumer is a measure of food web connectance.
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• Organisms in a food web are linked in complex feeding relationships.
• The greater the number of organisms in a food web or ecosystem, the more stable that
ecosystem is.
• Removing one organism from the food web affects the populations of all the remaining
organisms in that food web.
• Further, the introduction of an organism also affects all the other organisms in the food
web.
Advantages of Food Webs over Food Chains
• Food webs show much more complex interactions between species within a community or
ecosystem.
• Food webs show that communities are supported by more than one producer.
• A single producer is a food source for many primary consumers.
• A consumer might have a number of different food sources on the same or different
trophic levels.
• A consumer can be an omnivore, feeding as a primary consumer but also as a consumer at
higher trophic levels.
ECOLOGICAL PYRAMIDS
• An ecological pyramid is graphic representations of the relative amounts of organisms,
energy or matter at each trophic level.
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• Ecological pyramids begin with producers on the bottom (such as plants) and proceed
through the various trophic levels (such as herbivores that eat plants, then carnivores that
eat herbivores, then carnivores that eat those carnivores, and so on).
• The highest level is the top of the food chain.
• There are two common types of ecological pyramids:
⮚ Pyramid of numbers.
⮚ Pyramid of biomass.
PYRAMID OF NUMBERS
• This is a graphical representation of the relative numbers of organisms at each trophic level
in a food chain.
• The pyramids of numbers show the raw number of each species at each trophic level.
• There number of organisms in a given area at a given time are counted and then grouped into
trophic levels.
• In a pyramid of numbers, the size of each block is proportional to the number of individuals
present in each trophic level.
• The number of organisms usually decreases at each trophic level as we move up the food
chain.
• This is because energy is lost at each trophic level.
Disadvantages of Pyramid of Numbers
● There is too much emphasis on numbers instead of the sizes of organisms in a food chain.
Producers vary greatly in size, but a single grass plant or alga, for example, is given the
same count/ status as a tree.
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● It over-emphasizes the importance of small organisms.
● Pyramids of biomass are usually inverted especially when parasites are part of a given food
chain.
● The trophic level of an organism may be difficult to ascertain since some can belong to more
than one trophic level.
● Pyramids of numbers are difficult to draw to scale because the range of numbers is usually
large.
• There are a number of situations in which pyramids of numbers may be inverted.
• A single tree for example may be food for many caterpillars.
PYRAMID OF BIOMASS
• A pyramid of biomass is a graphical representation of the total biomass (dry mass) at each
trophic level in a community.
• The units of biomass are g/m2, or kg/ m2.
• Thus an enormous mass of grass is required to support a smaller mass of buck, which in turn
would support a smaller mass of lions.
• Most biomass pyramids narrow sharply from primary producers to top-level carnivores
because energy transfers are so inefficient.
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• Because of the progressive loss of energy along a food chain, any ecosystem cannot support
a large biomass of top-level carnivores.
• With some exceptions, predators are usually larger than the prey they eat.
• Top-level predators tend to be fairly large animals.
• As a result, the limited biomass at the top of an ecological pyramid is concentrated in a
small number of large individuals.
NUTRIENT CYCLES
• Life on Earth depends on the recycling of essential chemical elements.
• Nutrient circuits involve both biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems and are called
biogeochemical cycles.
THE WATER CYCLE
• The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle, describes the continuous movement of
water on, above and below the surface of the Earth.
• Although the balance of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time, individual water
molecules can come and go, in and out of the atmosphere.
• The water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the
ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of evaporation, condensation,
precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow.
• In so doing, the water goes through different phases: liquid, solid (ice), and gas (vapour).
• The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats water in oceans, seas and other water bodies.
• Water evaporates as water vapour into the air.
• Ice and snow can sublimate directly into water vapour.
• Evapotranspiration is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil.
• Rising air currents take the vapour up into the atmosphere where cooler temperatures
cause it to condense into clouds.
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• Air currents move water vapour around the globe; cloud particles collide, grow, and fall out
of the upper atmospheric layers as precipitation.
• Some precipitation falls as snow or hail, sleet, and can accumulate as ice caps and glaciers,
which can store frozen water for thousands of years.
• Most water falls back into the oceans or onto land as rain, where the water flows over the
ground as surface runoff.
• A portion of runoff enters rivers in valleys in the landscape, with stream flow moving water
towards the oceans.
• Runoff and groundwater are stored as freshwater in lakes.
• Not all runoff flows into rivers, much of it soaks into the ground as infiltration.
• Some water infiltrates deep into the ground and replenishes aquifers, which store
freshwater for long periods of time.
• Some infiltration stays close to the land surface and can seep back into surface-water
bodies (and the ocean) as groundwater discharge.
• Some groundwater finds openings in the land surface and comes out as freshwater springs.
• Over time, the water returns to the ocean, where our water cycle started.
THE CARBON CYCLE
• The carbon cycle describes the movement of carbon as it is recycled and reused throughout
the biosphere.
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• Along with the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle, the carbon cycle comprises a sequence of
events that are key to making the Earth capable of sustaining life.
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• In the carbon cycle, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is absorbed by plants through
photosynthesis
• The carbon dioxide is then returned to the atmosphere through plant and animal
respiration.
• The plant food eaten by the primary consumers contains carbon, which is passed up through
the trophic pyramid to all levels of consumers.
• In addition, dead material containing carbon is decomposed and eaten by detritivores,
another part of the food chain.
• Carbon is also returned back to the atmosphere by decay and combustion.
THE NITROGEN CYCLE
• Nitrogen is important to all life and is a very dynamic element.
• Nitrogen in the atmosphere or in the soil can go through many complex chemical and
biological changes.
• It can be combined into living and non-living material, and return back to the soil or air in a
continuing cycle.
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● The major reservoir of nitrogen is the atmosphere, which is 79 % nitrogen gas (N 2).
● Nitrogen is also bound in soils and the sediments of lakes, rivers, and oceans.
● Some nitrogen is dissolved in surface water and groundwater.
● Nitrogen is also stored in living biomass.
● Key processes is the nitrogen cycle are nitrogen fixation,
NITROGEN FIXATION
• Molecular nitrogen (N2) cannot be used by plants and animals.
• The conversion of nitrogen (N2) from the atmosphere into a form readily available to plants
and hence to animals is an important step in the nitrogen cycle.
• This is called nitrogen fixation.
• There are four ways to convert N2 (atmospheric nitrogen gas) into more chemically reactive
forms:
1. Biological fixation
● Nitrogen can be fixed by bacteria that live in roots of legumes like Rhizobium.
● It can also be fixed by bacteria that live freely in the soil such as Azotobacter.
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2. Industrial fixation
● Under great pressure, at a temperature of 600 °C, and with the use of an iron catalyst,
hydrogen and nitrogen can be combined to form ammonia (NH 3) in the Haber process which
is used to make fertilizer and explosives.
3. Combustion of fossil fuels
● Automobile engines and thermal power plants release various nitrogen oxides (NO x).
4. Lightning
● Energy in lighting can also fix nitrogen into the soil.
⮚ Assimilation
● Plants can absorb nitrate or ammonium ions from the soil through their root hairs.
● If nitrate is absorbed is the converted to nitrite ions and then ammonium ions for
incorporation into amino acids, nucleic acids, and chlorophyll.
● In plants that have a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia, some nitrogen is assimilated in
the form of ammonium ions directly from the nodules.
⮚ Ammonification
● When a plant or animal dies, or an animal expels waste, the initial form of nitrogen is
organic.
● Bacteria and fungi convert the organic nitrogen within the remains back into ammonium
(NH4+), a process called ammonification or mineralisation.
⮚ Nitrification
● The conversion of ammonia to nitrate is performed primarily by soil-living bacteria and
other nitrifying bacteria.
● Nitrification has two stages; first, the conversion of ammonium (NH4+) into nitrite (NO2-).
● This is performed by bacteria such as the Nitrosomonas species.
● Second, the conversion of nitrites into nitrates (NO3-).
● This is done by bacterial species, such as the Nitrobacter.
● It is important for the ammonia to be converted to nitrates because accumulated nitrites
are toxic to plant life.
⮚ Denitrification
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● Denitrification is the conversion of nitrates to nitrogen gas (N2).
● This process is performed by bacterial species such as Pseudomonas and Clostridium in
anaerobic conditions.
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