🌎 Ecology Basics

Fundamental of Ecology

  • Ecology means interaction between community & abiotic environment.

“Ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surrounding or non-living components of environment.”

  • The term ecology was proposed by Reiter.
  • Living organisms:
    • Plants
    • Animals
    • Microorganisms is soil etc.
  • Non-living components of environment:
    • Light
    • Water
    • Wind
    • Nutrients in soil
    • Heat
    • Solar radiation
    • Atmosphere, etc.
  • Community: All the populations of the different species living and interacting in the same ecosystem.
  • Habitat: The characteristics of the type of environment where an organism normally lives.
  • Ecosystem: Bounded ecological system consisting of all the consisting organisms in an area and in the physical environment with which they interact.
  • The word ecosystem coined by A.G. Tansley.

Ecosystem Components

Producers

  • Mainly vegetation

Consumer

  • Heterotrophs: Feed on producer or consumers.
    • Herbivores:
      • Plant eaters
      • Primary consumers
    • Carnivores:
      • Meat eaters
      • Secondary (tertiary) consumers
    • Omnivores:
      • Eat both plant & animals

Decomposers

  • Break down dead organic matter & wastes.
  • Saprophytes:
    • Mostly bacteria & fungi.
  • Detritivores:
    • Feed on partially decomposed matter
    • E.g. crabs, termites, worms
  • Scavengers:
    • E.g. vultures, crows, lobsters

Food chain

  • In an ecosystem, the sequential chain of eating and being eaten is called a food chain.
  • Food chains consist of producers, consumers, and decomposers.
  • The majority of consumers and decomposers can be included in more than one food chain.
  • All animals require energy, which is procured from food, to function. A food chain describes how animals get energy. Animals are not capable of producing their own food.

Food web

  • Food webs show how plants and animals are connected in many ways to help them all survive. The set of interrelated food chains is a food web.

Niche

  • An organism’s habitat + role + tolerance limits to all limiting factors.
  • The niche of a species consists of:
    • Its role in the ecosystem (herbivore, carnivore, producer etc.).
    • Its tolerance limits (e.g. soil, pH, humidity).
    • Its requirements for shelter, nesting sites etc, all varying through time.
    • Food chain pyramid like pond, forest etc.
  • National Biodiversity Board - New Delhi
  • National Biodiversity Authority – Chennai
  • Red data book is famous for Endangered animals and Plants. IBPS AFO 2012
  • Law of Tolerance – Sheford
  • A law stating that the abundance or distribution of an organism can be controlled by certain factors (e.g. the climatic, topographic, and biological requirements of plants and animals) where levels of these exceed the maximum or minimum limits of tolerance of that organism.

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