4.2 Niches, and Community interactions

Chapter 4.2 Niches Community interactions

First question, whats a niche? A niche si when organisms live in different places so that the organism can live according to its needs. The conditions define how and organism will live and where it will live

Every specie has its own tolerance level. Tolerance meaning the ability to survive and reprodouce under a range of enviromental circumstances. Basically, it means what an animal can live in that good for its needs. If something in its enviroment changes, like a rise in temprature, the organism or animal starts to become stressed. When it becomes stressed, it has to use more energy to keep homeostasis (maintaing internal stability), thus, having less energy to grow and reproduce. Organisms have an upper and lower tolerance limit, but go beyond the lower or higher tolerance limit, and the organism will die.
An organism's tolerance level will define its habitat, or "adress" of where it lives.

To follow up on Niches, a niche not only describes what an organism does, but how its reacts with living and non living things
Other things about niches
-Resource can mean any nessecity of/for life (light, food, air, etc) Resources are needed for a niche to survive.
-For the physical aspects of a niche, the weather/climate has to be ideal for the organism to live in the niche.
-The biological aspects of a niche is the biotic (living) features that it needs to live.

In niches, competition is a big part of life. For example, plant or tree roots might compete for rich soil and water. Competition happens when two organisms try and use the same resource at the same time. A winner and loser is produced everytime theres competition, then the organism that lost dies out. Theres a principle called the Competitive exclusion principle that says that no two species can occupy exactly the same niche in the same habitat at exactly the same time.
Sometimes, organisms/species will even split up, or divide the resources.

All animals must eat other animals to get the nutrients and energy they need. Predator and prey relationships are when a predator hunts and feeds on the prey, this is called Predation.
There are also herbivore (plants) relationships where the animal eats only plants and vegitation.
Changed in population or a single specie is called keystone species. And that can make big changes in the community it lives in.

Symbioses is any relationship in which two species live closely together. And there are three main classes of symbioses.....
1)Mutualism: when both species benifit.
2)Parasitim:A relationship when one benifits when the other is harmed
3)Commensalism: Where one benifits and the other is not harmed.

And thats the 4.2

By: Colleen lynch

Chapter 3.2-Energy, Producers, and Consumers

Every living thing needs energy for growth, reproduction, and its own metabolic processes (processes by which food is converted into the energy and products needed to sustain life). If there is no energy, there are no life functions. Organisms can't create energy by themselves, so they can only use energy from other sources. On Earth, sunlight is a vital energy source for many living things.

Not so long ago, researchers found out that there are other energy sources for life. Autotrophs are organims that are able to capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and use it to produce their own food. They use solar or chemical energy to make food by putting together inorganic compounds into complex organic molecules. Autotrophs are also called primary producers because they store energy in forms that make it available to other organisms that eat them. HINTS: auto means "by itself. Trophikos means "to feed." so autotroph means "self feeder."

Most primary producers use the sunlight through the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis captures light energy and uses it to power chemical reactions that convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and carbohydrates. If there were no photosynthetic producers like trees, there wouldn't be enough oxygen for humans to breathe.

Biologist found organisms around volcanic vents on the deep ocean floor. There was no light for photoshythesis, so the scientists were trying to find out what the primary producers were. These orgainisms used chemosynthesis. It is a process which chemical energy is used to produce carbohydrates. Chemosynthetic organisms are mostly found in deep ocean floors, but several types of producers have been found in other parts of the bioshere such as hot springs.

Consumers such as animals, fungi and many bacteria can't directly use energy from the environment as primary producers. They are also called heterotrophs because they must get energy and nutrients from other organisms by eating them. There are many different types of consumers. Below:

• Carnivores-eat meat
• Herbivores-eat plants
• Scavengers-eat food killed by other animals. ex. vultures
• Omnivores- eat both plants and animals
• Decomposers-they "feed" by chemically breaking down organic matter. The decay caused by decomposers is part of the process that produces detritus-small pieces of dead and decaying plant and animals.
• Detritivores- digest decomposers that live on detritus particles. They chew or grinds them into even smaller pieces. ex. mites, snails, shrimp, crab, worms
  

Organisms in nature usually don't stay inside the categories ecologists placed them in. For example, herbivores that eat different plant parts often have various ways of getting food. Most birds don't eat leaves. That is because seeds and fruits are easy to digest while leaves are difficult to digest. Also, some carnivores such as hyenas will try to scavenge if they get a chance.
Photosynthesis

Carbon dioxide +Water +Light Energy = Carbohydrates+Oxygen

Chemosynthesis

Chemical Energy-Carbon dioxide+Hydorgen sulfide+Oxygen = Carbohydrates+Sulfur compounds

Chapter 1.1 - What Is Science?

In chapter 1.1 the main idea about what science actually is. literally science is an organized way of gathering information about the natural world. the book is trying to get us to think of science in a different way. Most of us think of science as a bunch of facts that were thrown together and never change, when actually science is always changing finding new ways to explore things.

There are a few main features of Science . One is that science only deals with the natural world. it does not go into supernatural phenomenon's or conspiracy's. two, scientist collect and organize data in a way in which is easiest to understand. Three, science only deals with evidence not beliefs.

Science is not something that only scientist participate in. you probably engage in science everyday without knowing it. science can be done through many ways. there is not one single way to go about conducting a science experiment but there is one frequently used method and it is called methodology. Methodology is a process in which you first observe and ask questions, then make inferences (which basically means to make an educated guess based on the evidence) and then test your theory's and make a conclusion.

I am not going to go much into detail about independent and dependent variables and qualitative and quantitative data since we have discussed those in class. one thing that the book does go into detail about is drawing conclusion. Conclusion is the last step in any theory or idea that you are testing, and it normally takes many tests and hypothosies before you can come to a conclusion.

STS 8 Texting

We will be creating our own class version of the textbook.  I am hoping this will help you immensely.  Again this is for you, written by you.

Each time a reading is assigned, a texter will be assigned to summarize the section of reading assigned.  It will be your job to explain this section as well as you possibly can so that the whole class can read your summary and feel as though they understand the main points of the section.  Feel free to include any visuals that would help bring clarity and understanding you the section.