Ecosystem Notes PDF

# NOTES ## Ecological niche - The function a species serves in its ecosystem - Includes what it eats, what eats it, and how it behaves - **No two species occupies identical niches** ## Producers and Consumers - Recall that producers and consumers get their energy from different sources - Consume...

# NOTES ## Ecological niche - The function a species serves in its ecosystem - Includes what it eats, what eats it, and how it behaves - **No two species occupies identical niches** ## Producers and Consumers - Recall that producers and consumers get their energy from different sources - Consumers can be further subdivided depending on what types of food they eat: - Herbivore - Carnivore - Omnivore - Scavenger ## Food Chains - Shows what organisms feed on in a sequence - In this food chain, the squirrel eats the pine cone seeds and the weasel eats the squirrel - The goshawk eats the weasel - Some of the chemical energy in the seeds goes to the squirrel and that chemical energy goes to the weasel - But organisms continually use up and release energy to their environment - There fore energy is continuously lost from all levels of the food chain. - **Producers:** first trophic level - **Herbivores:** second trophic level - **Carnivores:** third level and up # Life on Planet Earth 1. **Atmosphere:** is good for the Earth because it blocks the heat from burning the Earth. 2. **Lithosphere:** is the rocky outer shell of the Earth - **Atmosphere:** is the layer of gases extending upward for hundreds of kilometers. - **Hydrosphere:** is all of Earths water in solid, liquid, and gas form - **Biosphere:** is the zone around Earth where life can exist. 3. **Birds** (biosphere) fly through the air (atmosphere) and water (hydrosphere) - Flows through the soil (lithosphere) from google 4. Because biosphere is very thin by comparison. 5. The relationship is that the **biosphere** depends on the **Atmosphere**, **Lithosphere**, and **hydrosphere**, but they don't depend on the biosphere. 6. The **Gaia hypothesis** is an idea that says Earth works like a team. The team includes air, water, land, and living things. # Terrestrial Ecosystems - There are a few prominent and easily recognizable types of ecosystems on our planet. - These **Terrestrial biomes** are mainly based on the climate in the region. # Producers - 1st level. - Contains organisms that photosynthesize. # Primary Consumers - 2nd level. - Contains herbivores (eat plants on the 1st level). # Secondary Consumers # Ecological Pyramids - Display the relationships between trophic levels in ecosystems. - There are three types: 1. **Energy Pyramid:** - Shows the 1st trophic level on the bottom and the highest on the top. - The base is wider than the top because there is more energy stored in the numerous organisms found on the bottom. - Energy is lost as you get higher in the food chain. 2. **Biomass Pyramid:** - If you weighed all the organisms at the first level, it would weigh more than each of the levels on top. - For example, the weight of all the plants and trees would be higher than the weight of all the top carnivores added up. - The base is wider like the energy pyramid. # Engineered Ecosystems - Cover a large portion of Earth's land area # Land Uses - We replace natural ecosystems with land uses to support our modern lifestyles - Examples of land uses: - Farms (or agroecosystems) - Urban centers - Roads # Modern Agriculture - Many ingredients in our foods we eat are not native to Canada. - We import them from other countries, sometimes far away. ## Agroecosystems - Compared to natural ecosystems, agroecosystems have more uniform abiotic features, have lower biodiversity, and are more intensively used by humans - They also require humans to maintain them. - When we only grow one species of an organism, we are growing monocultures. - Consumers (insects, animals) that feed on these crops are considered pests. # Acid Precipitation ## Environmental Impact 1. **Aquatic Ecosystems:** - Aquatic life can tolerate only minor changes in the pH of the water. - As the pH decreases, the youngest and most fragile organisms die first. 2. **Soils:** - Acidic groundwater can dissolve away metals that soil normally has to help plants to grow. - Some soils are resistant to changes in pH (they have a buffering capacity). - However, adding too much acid can overwhelm the buffer system and make the soils poor to grow plants in. 3. **Forests:** - Acid soil weakens the trees so that they are more vulnerable to diseases, strong winds or extreme cold. ## Economic Impact - Acid precipitation can harm the Canadian economy - Loss of wood (damaged forests) - Reduction in fish stocks and ruining recreational fishing industry - Damages steel structures, limestone buildings and stone monuments.