Name______________________
Environmental Science – Kammerer/Ebbrecht
Chapter 4 Outline Notes
The Organization of Life
I. Ecosystems: Everything is Connected
a. An ecosystem is all of the organisms living in an area together with their
physical surroundings.
i. Examples: Oak Forest, Coral Reef, Vacant Lot
ii. Made up of both biotic and abiotic factors.
1. Abiotic- Nonliving: soil, water, sun, temperature
2. Biotic- Living: plants, animals, living or once living.
b. Scientists organize living things into levels.
i. Organisms- an individual living thing
1. Species- a group of organisms that can mate to produce
fertile offspring
ii. Populations- all of the members of the same species that live in
the same place at the same time.
iii. Communities- a group of various species that live in the same
place and interact with each other.
iv. Biosphere – thin layer of Earth where all life exists.
1. Exists here because of access to air and sun.
c. A habitat is the place an organism lives.
i. Every habitat has specific biotic and abiotic factors that the
organisms living there need to survive.
ii. Animals and plants cannot survive for long periods of time away
from their natural habitats.
II. Evolution
a. Charles Darwin used the term natural selection to describe the survival
and reproduction of organisms with particular traits.
i. A change in the genetic characteristics of a population from one
generation to the next is known as evolution.
1. Nature selects certain traits that are more likely to survive
and reproduce.
a. Example: tigers with sharp claws for hunting
2. Adaptation- an inherited trait that increases an organism’s
chance of survival and reproduction in a certain
environment.
a. Example: deer’s thick fur
ii. Coevolution- organisms evolve adaptations to other organisms
and to their physical environment.
b. Artificial Selection is the selective breeding of organisms by humans for
specific characteristics.
i. Examples: dog breeding, flowers, plants
c. Resistance is the ability of one or more organisms to tolerate a particular
chemical designed to kill it.
i. Example: pesticides
III. The Diversity of Living Things
a. Six Kingdoms (Refer to page 108 table 2)
i. Archaebacteria
ii. Eubacteria
iii. Fungi
iv. Protists
v. Plants
1. Lower Plants
2. Gymnosperms- woody plants that produce seeds, but their
seeds are not enclosed in fruits.
3. Angiosperms- flowering plants that produce seeds in fruit.
vi. Animals
1. Invertebrates- animals that lack backbones
2. Vertebrates- animals that have backbones