1-13 Ecosystems

Features of an ecosystem

Living organisms, ex. plants, animals, microorganisms, fungi, and protists

Nonliving (physical): hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, ex. nutrients, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen (DO), wind speed, temperature, and depth

The region of our planet where life resides, the combination of all ecosystems on Earth

Community of living and physical conditions in an area

Very distinctive boundaries

Where one ecosystem stops and the next begins

The exchange of energy and matter

The struggle of individuals to obtain a shared limiting resource

The principle stating that two species competing for the same limiting resource cannot coexist

Perform better and drive the other to extinction

When two species divide a resource based on differences in their behavior or morphology

Those individuals of each species whose use of the resource overlaps the least with that of the other species

Reduce their overlap and thereby partition their use of the limiting resource

An interaction in which one animal typically kills and consumes another animal

Evolved defenses

An interaction in which one organism lives on or in another organism

Rarely causes the death of it’s host

A parasite that causes disease in its host

A specialized type of predator that lays eggs inside other organisms, referred to as it’s host

An interaction in which an animal consumes plants or algae

Dramatic effects on producers

Evolved defenses against herbivores such as sharp spines and distasteful chemicals

An interaction between two species that increases the chances of survival for reproduction for both species

• Acaia trees and ants in Central America: trees supply food and shelter, ants protect from herbivores and competitors

• Coral reefs and algae: reefs provide home for algae, algae provides the coral with sugars through photosynthesis

• Lichens are made up of algae and fungi, fungi provides nutrients to the alga and the alga provides carbs to the fungi with photosynthesis

Where one species benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped ex. trees provide a place for birds to perch, look for food, and build a nest but the tree is neither harmed nor helped

Species that live in their historical range, where they have lived for hundreds, thousands, or millions of years

Species that live outside of their historical range ex. honeybees were introduced to North America in the 1600s and Red foxes were introduced to Australia for fox hunting

Introduced by accident

Oceanic islands

Killed al most all American Elm and Chestnut trees

They cannot survive the new region

An exotic species that does thrive and causes harm to other species

Rats, zebra mussels (Great Lakes), and kudzu