Download How Living Things Interact With Their Environment

How Living Things Interact With
Their Environment
Textbook Pages 704-709
What is Ecology?
• The study of how organisms interact with
their environment.
Ecosystems
• All the living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic)
things that interact in a particular area is known as
an ECOSYSTEM.
– Examples could be a prairie, a river, a mountain range,
a forest, a coral reef, etc.
View the clip on the coral reef. Name 3
biotic and 3 abiotic factors in the reef.
An organism obtains food,
water, shelter, and other things it
needs to live, grow, and
reproduce from its surroundings.
• An organism will do all of this
in its HABITAT.
• A single ecosystem may
contain several habitats.
– Ex. A forest ecosystem - fungus
will grow on the forest floor,
and flicker birds build nests in
the trees.
• An organism will live in
different habitats according to
its specific needs for survival.
How are the organisms in an
ecosystem grouped?
• Populations – all the
members of one
species in a particular
• Communities – all the
different populations
that live together in an
area
• Ecosystems - the
community and its
abiotic factors
Interactions Among Living Things
Pgs. 722-729
Every organism has its own adaptations that
make it best suited for living in its ecosystem.
• Niche: an organism’s
role or how it makes its
living.
– Includes what type of
food it eats, how it gets
this food, and which other
species use the organism
as food.
– Also include when and
how it reproduces and the
physical conditions it uses
to survive.
A gila monster and a
red-tailed hawk would
have two different
niches even though
they live in the same
desert ecosystem.
An organism’s niche may include how
it interacts with other organisms.
• The three major
types of
interactions among
organisms are:
– Competition
– Predation
– Symbiosis
Competition
• The struggle between organisms to survive in a
habitat with limited resources.
– Will occur when organisms fight over limited food,
water, and shelter
– Those organisms that survive have adaptations that
enable them to REDUCE competition.
Birds will utilize resource
partitioning methods. They will
eat different parts of the same tree.
Everybody WINS!
Predation
• An interaction in which one organism hunts and
kills another for food.
– Predator – the organism that does the killing
– Prey – the organism that is caught
Predators will often use sharp
teeth, stinging cells,
camouflage, claws, etc. to catch
prey.
Nature’s Perfect Predator – The
Praying Mantis
Animal of prey will use defense strategies like MIMICRY.
Examples: the monarch and the viceroy butterfly or the
nonpoisonous scarlet snake vs. the extremely dangerous
king snake
Symbiosis
• A close relationship between two species that
benefits at least one of the species.
– Mutualism
– Commensalism
– Parasitism
Mutualism

• A relationship in which BOTH species
benefit.
Bees and Flowers
Ants and Aphids
Symbiosis in the ocean
Commensalism

• Relationship in which one species benefits and
the other species is neither helped nor harmed.
Clown fish and sea
anemone
Whale and barnacle
Birds and a Tree
Parasitism

• One organism lives on or in another
organism and harms it.
Mosquito and human
Wasps and the Sphinx larva
Symbiosis Quiz
• Interaction: a vampire bat drinks a horse’s
blood
• Type of interaction?
PARASITISM
Symbiosis Quiz
• Interaction: bacteria living in a cow’s
stomach to help them break down the
cellulose in grass
• Type of interaction?
MUTUALISM
Symbiosis Quiz
• Interaction: In the desert is where the fringe
toed lizard stays in an abandoned desert rat
hole
• Type of interaction?
COMMENSALISM