Example: Mice have relationships with other mice, plants they eat, predators, nearby animals, and the environment.
Example: Mice interact with the environment by breathing oxygen, exhaling carbon dioxide, and burrowing holes.
Impact of Ecosystem Changes
Changes in one part of the ecosystem (e.g., a decrease in mouse population) can affect other parts (e.g., less food for predators, soil quality decreases).
Important Terms in Ecology
Habitat
Definition: Place where an organism lives.
Examples: A field, forest, or a basement for mice.
Population
Definition: All organisms of a particular species living in a habitat.
Example: All mice living in a field.
Community
Definition: All populations of different species living together in a habitat.
Example: Includes mice, owls, plants in a field.
Biotic Factors
Definition: Living factors of the environment.
Examples: Availability of food, number of predators.
Abiotic Factors
Definition: Non-living factors of the environment.
Examples: Temperature, soil pH.
Ecosystem
Definition: Interaction of a community of living organisms with non-living parts of their environment.
Ecology
Focus: Understanding how ecosystems function and change over time.
Key Processes in Ecosystems
Competition
For animals: Involves space (territory), food, water, mates.
For plants: Involves light, space, water, mineral ions from the soil.
Result: Organisms compete due to limited resources.
Examples: Lions and hyenas competing for a wildebeest; male deer competing for females.
Interdependence
Definition: All species depend on other species in some way.
Example: Food webs show feeding relationships and dependency.
Impact: Changes in one species affect others.
Example: Increase in mouse population affects grass availability for rabbits and grasshoppers, impacting hawk population and other species.
Predicting Changes in Ecosystems
Understand relationships to predict knock-on effects of changes.
Example: Mouse population increases lead to less grass, affecting rabbits, grasshoppers, and indirectly hawks, shrews, and sparrows.
Conclusion
Understanding these concepts is key to predicting how ecosystems function and might change in the future.