Interactions:

Environment and Organisms

Environmental Science
Interactions: Environments and Organisms
Outline
• Ecological Concepts
• Natural Selection and Evolution
• Organism Interactions
• Community and Ecosystem Interactions
Ecological Concepts
• Ecology is the study of ways organisms interact with each other and
with their nonliving surroundings.
• Environment means everything that affects an organism during its
lifetime.
• Abiotic factors: nonliving things that influence an organism, such as energy,
nonliving matter, living space, and ecological processes.
• Biotic Factors: all forms of life with which the organism interacts.
Ecological Concepts
Limiting Factors
• Limiting Factors are any factors whose shortage or absence restricts
species success.
• Scarcity of water or specific nutrients (plants).
• Climate –availability of a specific food (animals).
• Range of tolerance indicates a range of conditions in which an
organism can survive.
Ecological Concepts
 Habitat and Niche
• The habitat of an organism is the space in which an organism lives; it
is defined by the biological requirements of each particular organism.
• Usually highlighted by prominent physical or biological features.
• The niche of an organism is the functional role (profession) the
organism has in its surroundings.
• This term includes all the ways an organism affects the organisms with which
it interacts as well as how it modifies its physical surroundings.
Habitat and Niche
Habitat and Niche

Ecological niche of a beaver

 Genes, Populations and Species
• Genes are distinct pieces of DNA that determine the characteristics an
individual displays.
• A population includes all organisms of the same kind found within a
specific geographic region.
• A population contains more kinds of genes than any single individual within
the population.
• A species is a population of all the organisms potentially capable of
reproducing naturally among themselves and having offspring that
also reproduce.
 Natural Selection
• Natural selection is the process that determines which individuals
within a species will reproduce and pass their genes to the next
generation.
• The changes seen in the genes and characteristics displayed by
successive generations of a population of organisms over time is
known as evolution.
 Natural Selection
• Several conditions and steps are involved in the process of natural
selection:
1. Individuals within a species show genetically determined variation.
2. Organisms within a species typically produce more offspring than needed to
replace the parents when they die. Most of the offspring die.
3. The excess number of individuals results in a shortage of specific resources.
4. Due to individual variation, some individuals have a greater chance of
obtaining needed resources and therefore have a greater likelihood of
surviving and reproducing than others.
5. As time passes, the percentage of individuals showing favorable variations will
increase while the percentage showing unfavorable variations will decrease.
 Evolutionary Patterns
• Speciation is the production of new species from previously existing
species.
• It is thought to occur as a result of a species dividing into two isolated
subpopulations.
• Extinction is the loss of an entire species.
• Of the estimated 500 million species believed to have ever existed on earth,
98-99% have gone extinct.
• Coevolution is the concept that two or more species can reciprocally
influence the evolutionary direction of the other.
• Grazing animals and grass species.
Kinds of Organism Interactions
• Predation is a kind of interaction
in which one animal kills/eats
another.
• Predator benefits from food.
• Prey adaptation is manifested in a
higher reproduction rate.
 Competition
• Competition is a kind of interaction in which two organisms strive to
obtain the same limited resource.
• Intraspecific competition is a competition between members of same
species.
• Interspecific competition is a competition between members of different
species.
 Competition
• The competitive exclusion
principle holds that no two
species can occupy the same
ecological niche in the same
place at the same time.
• Less-fit species must evolve into
slightly different niche.
 Symbiotic Relationships
• Symbiosis is a close, long-lasting, physical relationship between two
different species. At least one species derives benefit from the
interaction.
• There are three categories of symbiotic relationships:
• Parasitism
• Commensalism
• Mutualism
 Symbiotic Relationships
• Parasitism is a relationship in which one organism (parasite) lives in
or on another organism (host), from which it derives nourishment.
• Ectoparasites live on the host’s surface.
• Fleas, lice, molds, mildews
• Endoparasites live inside the body of the host.
• Tapeworms, malaria parasites, bacteria, fungi
 Symbiotic Relationships
• Commensalism is a relationship in which one organism benefits while
the other is not affected.
• Remoras and sharks
• Mutualism is a relationship in which both species benefit. The
relationship is obligatory in many cases, as neither can exist without
the other.
• Mycorrhizae
Symbiotic Relationships
Community and Ecosystem Interactions
• A community is an assemblage of all interacting species of organisms
in an area.
• An ecosystem is a defined space in which interactions take place
between a community, with all its complex interrelationships, and the
physical environment.
 Major Roles of Organisms in Ecosystems
• Ecologists have divided organisms’ roles in ecosystems into three
broad categories:
1. Producers: Organisms that are able to use sources of energy to make
complex organic molecules from simple inorganic substances in their
environment.
2. Consumers: Organisms that require organic matter as a source of food.
They consume organic matter to provide themselves with energy and
organic molecules necessary for growth and survival.
 Major Roles of Organisms in Ecosystems
• Consumers can be further divided into categories based on the things they
eat and the way they obtain food.
• Primary consumers, or herbivores, eat plants as a source of food.
• Secondary consumers, or carnivores, are animals that eat other animals.
• Omnivores consume both plants and animals.
3. Decomposers use nonliving organic matter as a source of energy
and raw materials to build their bodies. Many small animals,
bacteria, and fungi fill this niche.
 Keystone Species
• A keystone species plays a critical role in the maintenance of
specific ecosystems.
• When bison are present in American tallgrass prairie ecosystems, they
increase the biodiversity of the site.
• Smaller plant species normally shaded by the tall grasses are allowed to be successful.
• Bison wallows retain many species of plants that typically live in disturbed areas.
• Their feeding patterns affect the extent and impact of fire.
 Energy Flow Through Ecosystems
• Each step in the flow of energy through an ecosystem is known as a
trophic level.
• As energy moves from one trophic level to the next, most of the
useful energy (90%) is lost as heat (second law of thermodynamics).
• Because it is difficult to measure the amount of energy contained in
each trophic level, biomass (weight of living material) is often used as
a proxy.
 Energy Flow Through Ecosystems

Categories of
organisms within an
ecosystem
 Food Chains and Food Webs
• A food chain is a series of organisms occupying different trophic levels
through which energy passes as a result of one organism consuming
another.
• Some chains rely on detritus.
• A food web is a series of multiple, overlapping food chains.
• A single predator can have multiple prey species at the same time.
 Food Chains and Food Webs

Food Chain Food web

 Nutrient Cycles in Ecosystems—
Biogeochemical Cycles
• Organisms are composed of molecules and atoms that are cycled
between living and nonliving portions of an ecosystem.
• These nutrient cycles are called biogeochemical cycles.
 Carbon Cycle
1. Carbon and oxygen combine to form carbon dioxide.
2. Plants use carbon dioxide during photosynthesis to produce sugars.
3. Plants use sugars for plant growth.
4. Herbivores eat plants, break down the complex organic molecules into simpler
molecular building blocks, and incorporate those molecules into their structure.
5. Respiration breaks down organic molecules into CO2 and water and releases
those compounds back into the atmosphere.
6. The decay process of decomposers involves respiration and therefore recycles
naturally occurring organic molecules.
7. Burning fossil fuels takes carbon atoms that were removed temporarily from the
active, short-term carbon cycle and reintroduces them into the active cycle.
Carbon Cycle
 Nitrogen Cycle
• The nitrogen cycle involves the cycling of nitrogen atoms between
abiotic and biotic ecosystem components.
• Producers are unable to use atmospheric N.
• Must get nitrate (–NO3)or ammonia (NH3.)
• Nitrogen-fixing bacteria convert nitrogen gas N2 into ammonia.
• Plants construct organic molecules.
• Eaten by animals.
• Decomposers also break down nitrogen-containing molecules, releasing
ammonia.
 Nitrogen Cycle
• Nitrifying bacteria are able to convert ammonia to nitrite, which can
be converted to nitrate.
• Denitrifying bacteria are able (under anaerobic conditions) to covert
nitrite to nitrogen gas (N2) which is ultimately released into the
atmosphere.
Nitrogen cycle
 Phosphorus Cycle
• Phosphorus is not present in the atmosphere as a gas. The ultimate
source of phosphorus atoms is rock.
1. Phosphorus compounds are released by erosion and become dissolved in
water.
2. Plants use phosphorus to construct necessary molecules.
3. Animals gain necessary phosphorus when they consume plants or other
animals.
4. Decomposers recycle phosphorus compounds back into the soil.
Phosphorous Cycle
 Human Impact on Nutrient Cycles
• Burning of fossil fuels releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere.
• Fossil fuel burning also increases the amount of nitrogen available to
plants.
• Converting forests (long-term carbon storage) to agricultural land
(short-term carbon storage) has increased the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere.
 Human Impact on Nutrient Cycles
• If too much nitrogen or phosphorus is applied as fertilizer, or if it is
applied at the wrong time, much of the fertilizer is carried into aquatic
ecosystems.
• The presence of these nutrients increases the growth rate of bacteria, algae,
and aquatic plants.
• Toxic algae can kill fish and poison humans.
• An increase in the number of plants and algae results in lowered oxygen concentrations,
creating “dead zones.”
Summary
• An organism’s environment can be divided into biotic (living) and
abiotic (nonliving) components.
• The space an organism occupies is its habitat, and the role it plays is
its niche.
• Organisms interact with one another in a variety of ways. Symbiotic
relationships are those in which two species live in physical contact
and at least one species derives benefit from the relationship.
• In an ecosystem, energy is trapped by producers and flows from
producers through various trophic levels of consumers.
Summary
• The sequence of organisms through which energy flows is called a
food chain.
• Multiple interconnecting food chains constitute a food web.
• The flow of atoms through an ecosystem involves all the organisms in
a community. The carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles are
examples of how these materials are cycled in ecosystems.