Bell Ringer: Feb. 11th, 2015
• Brainstorming: List everything you remember
about Ecology.
Living Things and the Environment
• S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of
organisms on one another and their
environments.
– Demonstrate in a food web that matter is transferred from
one organism to another and can recycle between
organisms and their environments.
– Explain in a food web that sunlight is the source of energy
and that this energy moves from organism to organism.
– Recognize that changes in environmental conditions can
affect the survival of both individuals and entire species.
– Categorize relationships between organisms that are
competitive or mutually beneficial.
– Describe the characteristics of Earth’s major terrestrial
biomes (i.e. tropical rain forest, savannah, temperate,
desert, taiga, tundra, and mountain) and aquatic
communities (i.e. freshwater, estuaries, and marine).
Living Things and the Environment
• Vocabulary:
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Organism
Habitat
Abiotic and Biotic Factors
Photosynthesis
Species
Population
Community
Ecosystem
Ecology
Biome
Biosphere
Habitats
• What is an organism?
 An organism obtains food, water, shelter,
and other things it needs to live, grow, and
reproduce from it’s environment.
• Habitat: an environment that provides the
things the organism needs to live, grow, and
reproduce.
 How could an area have more than one
habitat?
 Why do different organisms live in
different habitats?
Biotic Factors
• Biotic Factors: the living parts of the
habitat.
What are some more Biotic
Factors?
• Think about biotic factors at your home or
some that you have seen somewhere
else.
Abiotic Factors
• Abiotic Factors: the nonliving parts of an
organism’s habitat.
• Water
• Sunlight
• Oxygen
• Temperature
• Soil
• Space
Water
• Water is required by ALL living things
 Your body, for example, is about 65% water.
 Plants and algae need water, along with sunlight
and carbon dioxide, to make their own food in a
process called photosynthesis.
Sunlight
• Sunlight is an important abiotic factor because
sunlight is needed for photosynthesis.
• In places that do not receive sunlight, such as
dark caves or deep in the ocean, plants and
algae cannot grow.
• If plants and algae cannot grow in places,
will there be more organisms or less
organisms in these places?
Oxygen
• Most living things require oxygen to carry
out life processes.
• Organisms on land obtain oxygen from the
air, which is only about 20% oxygen.
• Aquatic organisms obtain oxygen that is
dissolved in the water.
• What system is responsible moving
oxygen in to the body?
Temperature
• The temperatures that are typical of an
area determine the types of organisms
that can live in that area.
Soil
• Soil is a mixture of rock fragments,
nutrients, air, water, and the decaying
remains of living things.
• The type of soil in an area influences the
kinds of plants that can grow there.
• Name some organisms that use the soil
itself as a home…
Levels of Organization
• Species: are a group of organisms that
are physically similar and can mate with
each other and produce offspring that can
also mate and reproduce.
• Population: all the members of one
species living in a particular area.
Population or Not?
• All of the pigeons living in New York City
• All the bees in a bee hive
• All of the people who live in Lowndes
County
• All of the trees in a forest
• All of the rocks on the beach
• All the prairie dogs in Texas (400 million)
Communities
• Community: all of the different populations that
live together in a particular area.
• To be considered a community, the different
populations must live close enough together to
interact.
• How can different populations interact with
each other?
Ecosystems
• Ecosystem: community of organisms that
live in a particular area, along with their
nonliving surroundings make up an
ecosystem.
• Populations in an ecosystem interact with
one another all of the time. Any change in an
ecosystem will affect all the different
populations that live there.
• Ecology: is the study of how living things
interact with each other and with their
environment.
How is an ecosystem self-sustaining?
• The production of chemical energy from
sunlight.
• Transfer of energy from one organism to
the next.
• Decomposition of dead organisms
• Reuse of nutrients by other living
organisms.
Types of Ecosystems
Biome & Biosphere
• Biome: very large ecological areas on earth’s surface, with
plants and animals adapting to their environment. It begins
on the ocean floor and goes up into our atmosphere.
 Biomes are often defined by abiotic factors
 5 main types of Biomes
• Desert
• Tundra
• Aquatic
• Grassland
• Forest
• Biosphere: the global sum of all ecosystems or the zone of
life on Earth.
Habitat or Ecosystem
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Community or Population?
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Ticket out the Door
• Place these levels of organization in order from the biggest to the
smallest.
 Tissue
 Organelle
 Community
 Cell
 Ecosystem
 Atom
 Organ
 Biome
 Organism
 Population
 Biosphere
 Organ System
 Molecule