The Study of Ecosystems and Biomes

Ecosystems and Biomes

Ecosystems and Biomes are large complicated things. So we need to categorize them in order to understand them.

The smallest yet largest category: individual organisms

• As you can see at the top we really mean a single organism

• By studying one organism we can understand many things about an ecosystem.

• I say "yet the largest" because there are a un-numbered multitude of individual organisms on this planet.

Multiple Choice

Which would be an example of an individual?

Studying the individual

• How does it interact with its habitat?

• How does it get food?

• How does it find a mate?

• What might eat it?

• How does it find a home?

• These are all questions that an ecologist might ask and study to see how an individual interacts with an ecosystem

Open Ended

What is something you think you could learn while watching and studying an individual organism?

Open Ended

What is something you might miss studying just an individual?

Studying the individual

• Studying an individual would allow a scientist to understand behaviors that all other organisms like the one studying do.

• From there a scientist can see how a population interacts with an ecosystem.

• They can also apply these common habits to populations of the same type of organism in a different ecosystem.

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To understand and study an individual it helps to understand the needs of living things.

We can use the characteristics of living things to help understand what to look for while we are studying an individual.

Open Ended

List out the characteristic of living things.

Open Ended

How do you think knowing this information could help you study an individual organism?

By understanding the characteristic of living things we can know what to study.

• Where does it get it's energy?

• How does it mate?

• How does it physical characteristics allow it to survive in this habitat?

• There are a whole host of questions you can come up with based on the characteristics of living things.

In order to understand the individual and its interaction with an ecosystem we need to understand the population they are a part of.

Multiple Choice

Prediction: What is a population?

• an interacting group of various species in a common location.

• a group of organisms of the same species that live in the same area.

• A single, separate organism (animal or plant) distinguished from others of a same kind.

• consisting of biotic and abiotic components that function together as a unit.

A population is a group of individuals of the same species (organism) living and interbreeding within a given area

Studying populations

• By studying a population you know how an individual fits into it. (Are the they alpha or are they at the bottom of the hierarchy, How likely are they to mate, etc...)

• By understanding population you can also know the impact of a larger group on the ecosystem and can even evaluate the health of an ecosystem based on a population's growth.

Sometimes we participate in the study of a population by watching tv.

Open Ended

What is one behavior you observed the meerkats doing that you think you need a population to help you understand?

If you are studying a population you might ...

• Track population size to see if it is growing or shrinking

• Track where the population roams to understand their needs and impact on the ecosystem around them

To further understand an individual or population you might need to look at how the community interacts with them.

Multiple Choice

Prediction: What is a community?

• an interacting group of various species in a common location.

• a group of organisms of the same species that live in the same area.

• A single, separate organism (animal or plant) distinguished from others of a same kind.

• consisting of biotic and abiotic components that function together as a unit.

A community is an interacting group of various species in a common location

Studying a Community

• At this level you are looking at how one living thing interacts with another.

• Different types of relationships have different terms for them. I will cover this more in the Biotic and Abiotic lesson.

Just slightly bigger than a community your can also study the habitat

This is where you are looking at interactions between living and nonliving things.

When studying habitat you might study...

• How an animal/plant population is spreading more and more north due to average temperature changes

• How a change in a river's course affects land plants around it and the aquatic system in it.

• How changes due to disturbances like wildfires affect a population.

Habitat can help us understand...

• Why a snow hare is white

• Why trees don't grow in some deserts but do in others.

• Why the ground finch of the galapagos islands changed beak size over a about a 5 year period.

Open Ended

Describe what you think your own habitat is.

The interaction between living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) factors helps us piece together many puzzles.

This will be further talked about in the Biotic and Abiotic Factors lesson.

If we have an even bigger area then what and individual would roam in we would call it an ecosystem

At the ecosystem we are still studying the interaction between living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) things just on a bigger scale

We will breakdown interactions and ecosystem in future lessons and playlists

If we zoom out even more for our study we get to the level of biome

Multiple Choice

Prediction: What is a biome?

• an interacting group of various species in a common location.

• an area of the planet that can be classified according to the plants and animals that live in it

• A single, separate organism (animal or plant) distinguished from others of a same kind.

• consisting of biotic and abiotic components that function together as a unit.

Biomes are very much larger then just one ecosystem

• A biome is an area of the planet that can be classified according to the plants and animals that live in it.

• Temperature, soil, and the amount of light and water help determine what life exists in a biome.

If we still push out with our study of ecology we get to the biosphere

This is the region of the planet that a living things exist.

The Biosphere

• Living things exist in ...

• the water

• on and blow land

• in the air

• pretty much any place you can think of

• there are even living things is the hot geothermal waters of Yellow Stone National park.

Hopefully now you see an ecosystem is a really complicated thing to study

Open Ended

Name two things you didn't know and one thing you still have a question about.