Steve Pollock Ecology Summary

It is the observed process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. Within any community some species may become less abundant over some time interval, or they may even vanish from the ecosystem altogether. Similarly, over some time interval, other species within the community may become more abundant, or new species may even invade into the community from adjacent ecosystems. This observed change over time in what is living in a particular ecosystem is "ecological succession".

Before diving into the essay, much content on environmental vocabulary, language, and theory is needed to understand the scope and magnitude of the thesis. Firstly, the phrase ‘natural world’, for all contexts and purposes of this essay, the phrase will mean the world outside of human’s domain. Secondly, the difference between the tiers of nature, environmental, and ecological realms. Nature will mean once

Symbiotic relationships, negative, positive, and neutral can be found everywhere around the world. Although these relationships may have negative effects they all have an important role in the environment. Each organism has its role, even though it could be parasitic role it has its own role and place in nature. Mutualistic relationships help animals and organisms provide for themselves and thats why they are

Environmental pollution can adversely influence the ecosystem by minimizing the health and safety of the neighboring environment much needed for the organisms’ to existence. Habitat destruction is the second hazard that comes from human life increasing. To maintain human’s keep living, it is required to create regions for urban development, agriculture, and other much needed elements and pleasing living factors. Then again, the necessities to please the life of humans pose a threat to the life of organisms in the particular area. In the temperate forest ecosystem, numerous abiotic features play a part of its continued existence between the local organisms. The abiotic factors, which are nonliving factors that affect living organisms, are example things like its weather, light source, temperature, soil, minerals, air and water. The combination of these elements aid in the survival of the ecosystem alone and provide certain survival of the organisms in the environment (Viau, 2000). The organisms in the temperate forest ecosystem have undergone adjustments to assist or sustain the available resources and live through in the surrounding environment. Suitable modification ensures the survival of an organism in a particular

Understanding how organisms interact with each other and their ecosystems is an important aspect of conservation. Ecology will include the ecology of a diversity of species and environments such as wildlife ecology and freshwater ecology. An understanding of ecology allows for better management of human impacts on the environment. Ecology also provides necessary conservation tools such as ways to model and organize ecosystems, which is necessary for areas such as wildlife management. Ecology will allow me to understand the dispersal, migration, and population dynamics of species; having an understanding of ecology is essential when working to create solutions for environmental problems that species face, for example, in stabilizing populations of endangered

Ecosystems is the dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment that work together to form a functional unit and they are constantly changing due to the fluctuating equilibrium from natural stress and human action which has had adversarial impacts on ecosystems. This is evident in Minnamurra rainforest as human induced modifications and environmental stresses had resulted in a vulnerable ecosystem. Furthermore, the removal of factors that contribute to the vulnerability of an ecosystem is important as it affect the functioning of the ecosystem as processes are accelerated, biodiversity is decreased which greatly affects humans. Despite the negative effects caused by humans, they have discovered that ecosystems are susceptible from harm caused by natural environmental factors or human impacts and realised the importance of protecting and managing ecosystems therefore have implemented management strategies that are supposed to prevent further detriment and as a consequence may induce resiliency.

The audience of this book is presumed to be the general person who is not fully intact with the ideas that he or she is disrupting the ecosystem and is not aware of the effects they are doing as a whole. The book argues that no ecosystem is completely inert as things such as climate changes or drought can also affect the enviorment. Without human interaction an environment can still have issues, but the introduction of human life and economy does take a grave toll on the climate. These are irreversible effects that mankind are doing to the ecosystem. The English

Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the interactions of organisms with each other, and with their physical and chemical environments. Another main topic discussed in this chapter is ecosystems. Ecosystems are habitats or areas that consists of two basic components. Ecosystems include such things as biotic and abiotic components. Biotic components are living organisms within an ecosystem and abiotic components are things like sunlight, temperature, and rainfall. Within an ecosystem are producer and autotrophs. Producers and autotrophs consist of plants, algae, and bacteria. These two organisms obtain food from inorganic materials and light energy. As to where consumer and heterotrophs obtain energy by eating plants or the animals that eat the plants. An ecosystem is made up of several different parts. Each part of an ecosystem is different from the other. None of these parts within the ecosystem rely on the other. They are all interdependent being either predators or

1. The interdisciplinary study of humanity’s relationship with other organisms and the non-living physical environment is termed

Another type of relationship is a predator/prey relationship. This relationship is between a predator and its prey. A predator eats its prey. An example of this in the prairie ecosystem is between a coyote and a rabbit. A coyote eats the rabbit, therefore making the relationship between the coyote and rabbit predator/prey.

Human beings sometimes fail to understand the important role that the environment plays in ensuring our survival and well-being because they have little knowledge about the environment, which makes them have less concern about it. The concept of deep ecology, which refers to a more

As a set of interacting species found in the same place and functioning together, this enabling life to persist. That is essentially the definition we used earlier. A problem with this term and definition is that it is often difficult in practice to know the entire set of interacting species. A resource, in ecological terms, is something such as food, water, habitat, and sunlight, prey that is required by an organism to perform a vital function such as grow or reproduce. A consumer is an organism that consumes a resource such as predators and herbivores (Botkin, 2015). Ecosystems are collections of plants, animals, and micro-organisms interacting among themselves and with their habitat. While most ecosystems are hard to define and draw rigid boundaries around, scientists characterize them by their rock and soil types, by water features such as streams and ponds, and by the common plant and animal species which make their homes within these areas. This, most interactions between animals involve one or more competitor species competing for a resource. Ecosystem management also recognizes the influence of natural disturbances such as fire and windstorms, accepting that natural ecosystems are dynamic and change over time. Biological production is the capture of usable energy from the environment to produce

Symbiosis – What is It? Symbiosis describes a relationship between two organisms, and there are a variety of different symbiotic relationships that can be observed on the reef. They are:

Ecology today can be defined as “the study of the interrelationships between living things and their environment”. It is important to understand that when we say that ecology includes the “environment”, we are talking about everything that is external to an organism, all the biotic and abiotic. Nowadays it also attempts to understand and explain the how and why of the origins and mechanisms of interactions.

Humans have existed since 200,000 years but the Earth has existed around 4.5 billion years. Nature has provided us with everything we have today - food, medicines, materials, chemicals, metals, minerals etc. It can only keep providing us when we maintain the right environment for it to exist. This environment depends on the biodiversity of Earth. The number of species of plants, animals and microorganisms and the various genes in these species, different ecosystems such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth. Hence Biodiversity impacts everything. We will discuss how Biodiversity plays a crucial role on social, environmental, and economic factors. We will also discuss what