The Structure Of An Ecosystem And Estimate The Trophic Composition And Productivity Of The Benedict Forest Preserve

Each step in a food chain is a “trophic level” because of the energy transfer between them which can be shown in energy pyramids. All of the energy that passes on originally comes from the sun before moving through the order of the trophic levels, which is from producers to primary consumers to secondary consumers, then eventually to tertiary consumers. Although, as one lifeform eats another for energy, only 10% transfers to the next level because that 90% is used to “carry out the functions of living, such as producing new cells, regulating body temperature, and moving,” or for other necessary tasks. These transfers through eating are important since they help maintain ecosystems like the Everglades Hardwood Hammock. (Arms,

Ecology is how organisms interact with each other and the environment. The Lion King is linked to ecology by showing how organisms interact with each other and the environment. My three topics are how symbiotic relationships are important to a community, how limiting factors affect a community, how communities respond to abiotic or biotic factors, and how this is linked to the movie and Ecology. Symbiotic Relationships are interactions between two species and how they affect each other. There are three different types of symbiotic relationships Mutualism, Commensalism, and Parasitism.

As defined by “Environmental Science- 14th Edition”, an ecosystem is “a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy.” I will be using the computer simulation to alter the interactions of the organisms in the ecosystem to see what changes occur.

Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the relationship between organisms and their environment. Ecology is a basic tool of environmental science.

Ecological theory describes four levels of the environment that interconnect and impact people. Moving from the most intimate individual system to a broader inclusion you can identify the many systems that play a role in individual’s lives and well-being. These interactions could be harmonious and create homeostasis or could be disharmonious and cause stress.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. If one of the organisms is disturbed, it can change the trophic cascade which is a sequence of impacts down the food chain. Hannibal supports this statement by writing “keeping these connections going ensures healthy, functioning ecosystems, which in turn support human life.”(578) An example of this is if all of the beavers died the other organisms would go somewhere else or die due because they no longer will have dams to support their ideal habitat.

The rare Daintree Rainforest is one of the forest that has been demolishing slowly because of logging. With this ecosystem fragmentation is occurring (“All about carbon dioxide”). Ecosystem fragmentation is where the forest is separated into smaller pieces over time because of human activity (“The Daintree Rainforest Australia”). With this happening, animals habitats are becoming even smaller (“All about carbon dioxide”). With more habitat space becoming less it is causing more animals to become threatened and an endangered species (“Deforestation”). Smaller amount of habitat is also affecting the animals migration patterns, their ability to collect food, and provides less shelter (“All about carbon dioxide”). This fragmentation also makes it a struggle for animals to move from one part of the rainforest to another and it also affects the limit it has on the animals breeding population. The ecosystem fragmentation is making them become more vulnerable to extinction (“Population in Daintree”). Logging is cutting down one and one-half acres of trees each second and eighteen million acres of forest are destroyed each year. It is estimated that in over the next quarter of a century up to twenty-eight thousand animal species may become extinct all because of logging and human damned for lumber (“All about carbon

The Everglades is home to a magnitude of different species of plants and animals and is recognized for its unique wildlife resources. There are common wildlife like the Key Deer and the Florida Black Bear and, some hard to find ones like the American Crocodile and the Sand Skink. This landscape is also a special place to more than 60 threatened or endangered species, including the Florida Panther and Manatee. The Everglades also houses more than 700 plant species, like the famous Saw grass and the Slash pine. “The word commonly used to describe the relative number of different species in an ecosystem is “biodiversity,” (Are the Everglades Forever?). Having biodiversity is great in an ecosystem because, the diverse kinds of animals and plants give species different choices of preference for survival. All these animals using and surviving off one another creates what is called a food chain. This chain shows how the animals connect in their eating habits. In places like the Everglades, there is much biodiversity that these connections start to look more like a web, which is much more complicated than a food chain. Food chains/webs can vary according to the

Ecosystems maintain themselves by recycling energy and nutrients obtained from external sources. At the first trophic level of primary producers i.e. plants and algae, use solar energy to produce organic plant material through photosynthesis.

Ecosystem: a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment

This investigative study included whether gray wolves, a natural top predator to white tailed deer, create a trophic effect by reducing the deer and how it may affect saplings and vegetation in the Great Lakes forest area. The study was not conducted for direct kills, instead it was done to see the effects of the deer population and the plant and vegetation systems surrounding them. The expected effects were that in areas where wolves are less dense in the region it causes an increase of deer having a negative impact on plants and vegetation in the surrounding area. The recolonization of wolves in the area is generating trait-meditated effects in the Great Lakes forest and are

In order for an ecosystem to stay an ecosystem there are three aspects that interact with each other:

In the ecosystem organisms rely on each other for food and protection. The Food chain is like a pyramid you have the producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers, and quaternary consumers. It’s an almost perfect balance and if any level were to just stop existing then the food chain would be destroyed. An example of organisms relying on others is an issue of isle royale were the wolves and moose population are in jeopardy. This relationship is important because without the other animal the population would die.

Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with each other and their environment. There are many different types of interactions that can take place in which some organisms benefit and some are harmed. One example of an interaction between organisms where both organisms benefit is mutualism. An example of mutualism takes place between a honeybee and a flower. When a bee lands on a flower it positively benefits by eating the nectar. Then, when it lands on another flower, the pollen from the first flower is transferred to the next flower to help the plant reproduce. Alternatively of mutualism is another type of interaction called competition. In this case, both organisms are negatively affected.

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.