Tuesday 4/17*only people who need make up work during tutorial today

1. What is ecology?2. Give an example of something studied in

ecology.

Agenda:

1. whiteboards!

2. Notes D:

3. Short video

Whiteboard reminders

• Only write answers to questions• Please return markers• Paper towels in trash• All group members should contribute!

Whiteboard Questions1. Give an example of a primary and secondary consumer.2. What is the difference between omnivore, herbivore, and

carnivore?3. What is the difference between producer and decomposer?

Give examples of each.4. What is a niche? Give an example.5. Draw an ecological food pyramid6. Give an example of a food chain7. Draw an ecological food web8. What would happen to an ecosystem if there were no

predators?9. Define “carrying capacity.”10. What is an ecosystem? Give three examples.*Bonus: Do you know anything about the carbon or nitrogen cycle?

Ecology

Video Questions

1. Where does the energy that powers life begin?

2. What breaks down the last remaining “bits” of energy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_RBHfjZsUQ

Video Questions

1. Where does the energy that powers life begin?

2. What breaks down the last remaining “bits” of energy?

Ecology: interaction between organisms and their environment

Food Chain• Represents feeding relationships within an ecosystem (habitat).

Ex. Ocean ecosystem: plankton fish crab seal shark (arrow points to the eater)

• Producers get energy from the sunlight • Sunlight is primary energy source

• autotrophs: “self feeding”

grass leavesalgae Plankton

Primary consumers eat producersherbivore

1. Secondary consumers 1.eat primary consumers2.(carnivores)

2. Tertiary consumers 1.eat secondary consumers.

3. Quaternary consumers eat tertiary consumers.

etc

• Each food chain ends with a top predator- an animal with no natural enemies

When any organism dies, its eventually eaten by scavengers called:

- detrivores (like vultures, worms and crabs) and broken down by -decomposers (mostly bacteria and fungi)

The exchange of energy continues.

• Food Pyramids

These are called trophic levels

Energy• In a food web or pyramid, energy is lost

– each time one organism eats another– So there have to be more producers than there

are consumers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxVMeLWzB_o

Lets make our own food pyramid!

• A food web is another way to represent feeding relationships.

Niche

• A term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem to each other. (how a species responds to its abundance in resources and enemies)– The role and location of an organism

• Desert scavenger– Vulture

• Ocean top predator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1aRSeT-mQE

• Community, population….• Carrying capacity