Sie sind auf Seite 1von 24

Chapter 40

Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
• Community – group of interacting populations
that inhabit the same region
– Biotic – living organisms
• Ecosystem – includes all the organisms plus
abiotic, or nonliving, environment with a defined
area
• Some connections between species are so
strong they result in coevolution – genetic change
in one species selects for subsequent change in
the genome of another species
• Habitat – physical place
where members of a
population typically live
• Habitat is a subset of niche
• Niche – total of all the
resources a species exploits
for its survival, growth, and
reproduction
• Competition occurs when 2
or more species vie for some
limited resource
• Competitive exclusion – 2
species cannot coexist
indefinitely in the same niche
– Species that acquires more
resources will replace the less
successful species
• Species with similar
needs can (and do)
coexist in communities
• Resource partitioning –
multiple species use
the same resource in a
slightly different way or
at a different time
• Birds of each species
feed in different ways
and on different parts
of the tree
• Symbiosis – one species lives in or on
another
– Mutualistic – both partners benefit
• Cow and cellulose-digesting microbes
– Commensalism – one species benefits, other
not significantly affected
• Tiny mites that live in human hair follicles
– Parasitism – one species benefits at the
expense of another
• Mistletoe taps into host plant vascular system
• Predators eat prey
– Predation exerts a strong
selective pressure on prey
to avoid being eaten
– Camouflage
– Warning colors
– Weapons and structural
defenses
• Predators have to defeat
prey defenses
• Keystone species –
makes up a small
proportion of the
community by weight, yet
exerts a disproportionate
influence on community
diversity
Communities change over time
• Succession – gradual change in a community’s
species composition
• Occurs as competing organisms, especially
plants, respond to and modify the physical
environment
• May lead to a climax community – community
remains fairly constant
• Primary succession – occurs in an area where
no community previously existed
– Pioneer species are the first to colonize
• Secondary succession – occurs where a
community is disturbed but not destroyed, with
some soil and life remaining
– An abandoned farm field

• Pioneer species tend to be r-selected


• Early colonists often alter the physical conditions
in ways which allow other species to establish
• Climax community members tend to be K-
selected
Energy input
• All ecosystems rely on a
continuous supply of
energy
• Nutrient cycles
continuously recycle the
atoms that make up every
object in the ecosystem
• Food chain – series of
organisms that
successively eat each
other
• Trophic level – position in the food chain
• Primary producer/autotroph
– Directly or indirectly provide energy for all other
organisms
• Consumer/heterotroph
– Obtain energy from producers or other consumers
• Herbivores – primary consumer
• Carnivores – secondary or tertiary consumers
• Decomposers – break down detritus
• Food web – network of interconnected food
chains
• Gross primary productivity – total amount of energy
trapped or “fixed” by all autotrophs in an ecosystem
• Net primary productivity – amount of energy available for
consumers to eat (rest of energy lost as heat or used to
generate ATP)
• Primary productivity varies widely
– Wetlands and tropical rain forests high
– Deserts very low
• Consumers cannot digest every bit of food and also lose
energy to heat
• 2-30% energy transfer from one trophic level to the next
– “10% rule” convenient estimate
• Pyramid of energy
– Represents each trophic level as a block
whose size is directly proportional to the
energy stored in new tissues per unit time
– Explains why food chains rarely extend
beyond 4 levels
– Explains why world’s largest animals have
been herbivores
– The lower humans eat on the food chain, the
more people we can feed
• Biomagnification
– A chemical becomes more concentrated in
organisms at successively higher trophic levels
– Happens for chemicals with 2 characteristics
• Dissolve in fat (animals eliminate water-soluble
chemicals in urine)
• Not readily degraded
– DDT once used to kill insects – banned in 1971
in U.S.
• Caused thinning in eggshells
Chemical cycles
• Biogeochemical cycles – interactions of
organisms and their environment continuously
recycle elements
• All cycles have steps in common
– Autotrophs take up inorganic form from environment
and incorporate it in organic form
– Animal eats plant, element becomes part of animal
– Incorporated into 2nd animal who eats 1st animal
– Eventually, decomposers release element back to
environment in inorganic form
• Water cycle
– Sun’s heat evaporates water
– Water vapor can condense and fall back to earth
– Underground water supplies
• Carbon cycle
– Autotrophs use CO2 to synthesize organic molecules
– Cellular respiration releases CO2
– Dead organisms and excrement return organic carbon to the soil
– Geological deposits – limestone, coal, oil
• Nitrogen cycle
– Essential component of proteins, nucleic acids, etc.
– Atmosphere 78% N2 but most organisms cannot use this form
– Rely on nitrogen-fixing bacteria to convert N2 to ammonia (NH3)
– Plants take up ammonium (NH4+)
– Nitrification – bacteria convert ammonia to nitrites (NO2-) and then to nitrates (NO3-) – plants can also use this
– Denitrification – bacteria return nitrogen to atmosphere as N2
• Phosphorus cycle
– Occurs in nucleic acids, ATP, and membrane phospholipids
– Also major component of bones and teeth
– Inorganic portion of cycle occurs mostly in sediments and rocks (not atmosphere)
– Geological sources release phosphate ions (PO4-3 )
– Autotrophs take up some, most returns to bodies of water to deposit in sediments
Investigating life: Two kingdoms and a
virus team up to beat the heat
• 3-way symbiosis
• Panic grass (Dichanthelium
lanuginosum) endures
scorching geothermal soils of
Yellowstone
• Grass benefits from fungus
(Curvularia protuberate) living
between its cells
• Each cannot live in the
scorching soils without the
other
• Looked for mycovirus (virus
that infects fungi)
• Found only plants infected with
virus survived
• To make sure it was the
virus did another
experiment
• Let virus-free (VF) and
virus-infected (Wt) fungi
grow together on a plate
until the virus-free fungi
acquired the virus
• Grass inoculated with this
newly infected fungus
also survived heat
• Repeated same success
in tomato plants – plant-
virus-fungi trio survived
the heat

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen