Honors Bio Notes:
Ecology:
- The study of the interactions of organisms and the living and
nonliving components of the environment
- Interdependence: survival of organisms depend on each other (either
living or non living)
- Ecological models: represent and describe the components of an
ecosystem
- physical, conceptual, or mathematical
- difficult to create because too many variables
- Levels of organization:
- Biosphere: about 20km thick. All organisms inside it except ISS
- Ecosystems: all living and non-living things in a particular
place
- Community: all the interactive organisms in a place
- Population: all individuals of a species in the same
place as the same time
- Organism: A single individual
- Habitat: the place where an organism lives
- Biotic and Abiotic factors:
- Biotic factors: living things in an area
- Abiotic factors: nonliving factors in an area:
, - pH
- temperature
- radiation
- water
- minerals
- salinity
- humidity
- oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc.
- Response to environmental changes:
- graph that shows the performance of an organism versus and
environmental variable: tolerance curve
- some organisms acclimate (adapt kinda) to their environment
- ex. northern ppl tolerate cold better or sth because they in
cold more like goldfish
- Homeostasis:
- Conformers: organisms that do not regulate their internal
conditions, change as environment changes
- Regulators: organisms that use energy to control stuff they can
control
- Some organisms go through with dormancy (hibernating
through the winter)
- Some others migrate
- Niche:
- each species / organism has a role in the environment, their role
or way of life is niche
- generalists: organisms that tolerate a lot of different crap:
- ex. Opossum
- specialists: organisms that can’t tolerate that much crap:
- ex. Panda
, - Energy transfer:
- All organisms depend on the Sun for energy someway
- Autotrophs (aka producers): make their own food by
capturing energy to create organic molecules
- Some autotrophs do not use light energy rather they use
energy stored in inorganic molecules to produce carbohydrates:
chemotrophs
- this process is called chemosynthesis
- Heterotrophs (aka consumers): get energy by eating
producers
- herbivores: eat producers
- carnivores: eat consumers
- omnivores: eat both
- detritivores (aka decomposers): feed on leftovers / dead
stuff no one wants & helps decay it
- recycle it for producers to use
- Gross primary productivity: rate at which producers in an
ecosystem capture light energy by making organic compounds
- Total organic material = biomass
- other organisms can only access energy stored in
biomass (eat stuff)
- Rate of biomass accumulation: net primary productivity
- kcal/m²/y or g/m²/y
- when organisms eat each other, energy is transferred
- energy flows from producers to consumers
- trophic level: sequence of feeding levels / amount of
energy got:
- 1st trophic level: producers
- food chain: a single pathway of feeding relationships
- food web: interlinked food chains that make up the
complex feeding relationships of ecosystems
- 10% rule: only abt 10% of energy from the food goes to the
eater
Ecology:
- The study of the interactions of organisms and the living and
nonliving components of the environment
- Interdependence: survival of organisms depend on each other (either
living or non living)
- Ecological models: represent and describe the components of an
ecosystem
- physical, conceptual, or mathematical
- difficult to create because too many variables
- Levels of organization:
- Biosphere: about 20km thick. All organisms inside it except ISS
- Ecosystems: all living and non-living things in a particular
place
- Community: all the interactive organisms in a place
- Population: all individuals of a species in the same
place as the same time
- Organism: A single individual
- Habitat: the place where an organism lives
- Biotic and Abiotic factors:
- Biotic factors: living things in an area
- Abiotic factors: nonliving factors in an area:
, - pH
- temperature
- radiation
- water
- minerals
- salinity
- humidity
- oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc.
- Response to environmental changes:
- graph that shows the performance of an organism versus and
environmental variable: tolerance curve
- some organisms acclimate (adapt kinda) to their environment
- ex. northern ppl tolerate cold better or sth because they in
cold more like goldfish
- Homeostasis:
- Conformers: organisms that do not regulate their internal
conditions, change as environment changes
- Regulators: organisms that use energy to control stuff they can
control
- Some organisms go through with dormancy (hibernating
through the winter)
- Some others migrate
- Niche:
- each species / organism has a role in the environment, their role
or way of life is niche
- generalists: organisms that tolerate a lot of different crap:
- ex. Opossum
- specialists: organisms that can’t tolerate that much crap:
- ex. Panda
, - Energy transfer:
- All organisms depend on the Sun for energy someway
- Autotrophs (aka producers): make their own food by
capturing energy to create organic molecules
- Some autotrophs do not use light energy rather they use
energy stored in inorganic molecules to produce carbohydrates:
chemotrophs
- this process is called chemosynthesis
- Heterotrophs (aka consumers): get energy by eating
producers
- herbivores: eat producers
- carnivores: eat consumers
- omnivores: eat both
- detritivores (aka decomposers): feed on leftovers / dead
stuff no one wants & helps decay it
- recycle it for producers to use
- Gross primary productivity: rate at which producers in an
ecosystem capture light energy by making organic compounds
- Total organic material = biomass
- other organisms can only access energy stored in
biomass (eat stuff)
- Rate of biomass accumulation: net primary productivity
- kcal/m²/y or g/m²/y
- when organisms eat each other, energy is transferred
- energy flows from producers to consumers
- trophic level: sequence of feeding levels / amount of
energy got:
- 1st trophic level: producers
- food chain: a single pathway of feeding relationships
- food web: interlinked food chains that make up the
complex feeding relationships of ecosystems
- 10% rule: only abt 10% of energy from the food goes to the
eater
