Ecology
✓ Early 20th Century
- study of the interactions of organisms in
→and
Frederick Frost Blackman: Law of Limiting Factors
with their environment
- shows the interdependence of species
Ernst Haeckel (1866) → Victor Ernest Shelford: Law of Tolerance
- coined the term Ecology
- Greek word “oikos” – house or home
I. Scope of Ecology
A. Studied from narrowest to the broadest
Individual → community → ecosystem →
biome → biosphere
B. Sub-disciplines in Ecology
Levels of Study
o Organismal Ecology
o Population Ecology
o Community Ecology
Taxonomic Groups
o Microbial Ecology
o Plant Ecology
o Animal Ecology
Content Area
o Molecular Ecology
o Physiological Ecology
C. Modern Ecology traces its roots to Natural
History.
II. History of Ecology
✓ Greek Inquiry
✓ Aristotle – wrote Historia Animalium
✓ Throphrastus – observed plants and
animals brought to him by those who
accompanied by Alexander the Great
✓ Herodotus and Plato – Providential
Ecology
✓ 16th to 18th Century
→ Carolus Linnaeus – phenology and
taxonomy of flowering plants
→ Alexander von Humboldt – Father of
Ecology and Biogeography
✓ 19th Century
→ Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
–Theory of Natural Selection
→ Warming – considered both abiotic and
biotic factors in the assembly of
communities
→ Bates – first to scientifically document
mimicry
→ Justus von Liebig: Law of the Minimum
o a plant’s development is limited by
the one essential mineral that is in
relatively shortest supply
o visualized as Liebig’s barrel
o when a process depends on a number of factors, its rate
is limited by the pace of the slowest factor
o each individual or population has a certain minimum,
maximum, and optimum environmental factor or
combination of factors that determine success.
Studies and Personalities that shaped the
discipline of Population Ecology
→ Thomas Robert Malthus – exponential
growth
→ Pierre Verhulst – logistic growth
→ Lotka and Volterra – predatory-prey model
and competition interactions
→ Georgii Gause: Competitive Exclusion
Principle
o two species competing for the
same resources cannot coexist if
other ecological factors are
constant.
Studies and Personalities that shaped the
discipline of Community Ecology
→ Karl Mobius – “biocoenosis” as community
of organisms
→ Henry Cowles – studied succession in
plants
→ Arthur Tansley – proposed and defined
ecosystem
British Ecological Society (1913)
- Headed by Arthur Tansley
Ecological Society of America (1915)
- Headed by Victor Ernest Shelford
George Evelyn Hutchinson
→ Created niche concept (1950s)
→ Father of Modern Ecology
Eugene and Howard Odum
→ Published 1st textbook for Ecology which
paved the way for Ecology to be part of
the college curriculum in universities.
Rachel Carson – Silent Spring
- Warned of the unintended effects of
pesticides that cause population declines in
many non-target organisms
- The book launched the environmental
movement
Organismal Ecology E.g., light, CO2, O2, E.g., temp, RH, pH,
space, water, mineral salinity, concentration
- Focuses on the study of individuals and nutrients, other of pollutants
species and their relationship with their organisms as food
environment
- Addresses 2 fundamental questions:
• How does a species or organism
function in this environment? Note:
• How does the environment influence
1. One is not entirely exclusive of the other.
that species or organism?
→ An environmental factor may be both a condition
Autecology and a resource depending on the situation and the
context.
→ the individual and how it relates to the → Biotic factors may also be conditions (e.g., a
environment; emphasizes life history and predator is a condition for the prey as much as a
behavior as an adaptation to the environment competitor is a condition for the other)
Synecology Habitat
→ groups of organisms and their relation to the - Environment of the organism
environment (community, and ecosystem - Part and parcel of the niche
ecology); considers “the picture as a whole”

Two Classifications of Organisms HABITAT NICHE

UNITARY MODULAR Actual place G. E. Hutchinson 1957

determinate form indeterminate form where an Not a place but an idea
continuous and unpredictable pattern of organism lives Defines the conditions
predictable pattern of growth and and resources an
growth and development “Address” of organism needs in
development sedentary or hardly an organism order to practice its
highly mobile mobile way of life
governed by genetic highly influenced by the Way of life = functional
makeup environment role
Fundamental vs. realized
Species niche
n-dimensional
- a group of actually or potentially hypervolume
interbreeding individuals that are
reproductively isolated from other
individuals FUNDAMENTAL VS. REALIZED NICHE
- Each individual organism belongs to a
species. Fundamental – the total potentialities of the
organism; what it may be capable of using and
Environment doing
- “The environment of any organism consists, Realized – actual role and lifestyle of the organism
in the final analysis, of everything in the
universe external to the organism.”

TWO TYPES OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

RESOURCE CONDITION

All things consumed Environmental factors

or used up by that influence
an organism, making the functioning of
it less available for living organisms
others May be altered but
Organisms may not consumed
compete for resources
 ECOSYSTEM COMPONENTS: BIOTIC ROLES AND RELATIONSHIP
Biotic Components – Can be classified according to their functional role in the ecosystem (reflecting feeding
relationships)

1. Producers
- produce their own food
- autotroph (“self-feeding”)
- supplies the needed vitamins, minerals, and energy for consumers
✓ Photoautotroph – energy for making food is obtained from radiant energy; process of making food
is called photosynthesis
✓ Chemoautotroph – energy for making food is obtained from oxidation of inorganic chemicals
(chemotropy); process of making food is called chemosynthesis
2. Consumers (1°, 2°, 3°)
- includes all animals which feed directly or indirectly on producers for food
- heterotrophs
- part of the grazing food chain
✓ Herbivores (1° consumers)
o feed only on producers
o they regulate the growth of plants and, if the grazing pressure is not too high, they may even
encourage abundant re-growth
o they also act as pollinators
Frugivores – eat fruits
Folivores – graze or browse on leaves and/or twigs (e.g. grazers and browsers)
Nectarivores – feed on nectar
Granivores – eat seeds
Palynivores – feed on pollen
Mucivores – sip plant fluids
Xylophages – eat wood
✓ Omnivores
o feed on both plants and animals
✓ Carnivores
o animals that feed directly on other animals (e.g., predators)
o act as natural enemies, maintain balance in the ecosystem
• 2° consumers – feed only on herbivores
• 3° and higher-level consumers – feed only on other carnivores
3. Decomposers, Detritivores, Scavengers
- special type of consumers that thrive on decomposing matter or cast-off fragments of living organisms
- participate in the detrital food chain
- recycle matter into nutrients that are available for re-entry into the grazing food chain (this is a very
important function; if nutrient cycling does not happen then all of life would cease)

Feeding Relationships

- food produced by autotrophs is passed on to consumers

- each level in the successive food/energy transfer is called a trophic level
- represented through food chain (single chain of feeding), food web (network of feeding relationships),
or food pyramid (feeding relationships showing either biomass or energy contained at each level)
 - Victor Ernest Shelford (1911)
- The ability of an organism to maintain its ecological niche is determined by its ability to tolerate a range
of physical and chemical factors present in the environment.

Response Curve 1

Generalized response
o Extreme conditions are lethal
o less extreme conditions prevent growth
o only optimal conditions allow reproduction
Appropriate for conditions like T and pH

Response Curve 2

Lethal only at high intensities

Low-level intensity or concentration of the factor has no detectable
effect but an increase begins to cause damage and a further increase
may be lethal.
Response curve for toxins, radioactive emissions, chemical pollutants

Response Curve 3

Response to conditions that are toxic at high levels but essential, as a

resource for growth, at low levels
This is the case for NaCl and for many elements that are essential
micronutrients (e.g. Cu, Zn, Mn, etc.)

Notes:

→ Although tolerance to adverse environmental conditions is highly desirable (e.g., for agricultural crops)
o Remember that tolerance can break down under the influence of confounding factors.
o Actual responses are modified under field conditions.
→ There are always trade-offs...
o High tolerance to one condition may cause high susceptibility to another condition.
Water and dissolved substances are both conditions and resources.

WATER AS Descriptions
Critical Resource • Organisms – composed of ~80% water
• Hydration – necessary for metabolic reactions
• Water content needs continual replenishment
• Water incorporated in plant body <<< vol. of water that flows through the
transpiration stream (importance of root systems)
• Most terrestrial animals drink free water and generate some from the
metabolism of food
• Animals of arid zones may obtain all their water from their food.

Humidity • Moisture content of air relative to an equal volume of saturated air at a

given temperature
• Important source of water
• Affected by temp, LI, and vegetation
• Plants transpire and affect humidity in the area
Rainfall/Precipitation • Water condensed from atmospheric vapor and falling in drops
• Allows re-distribution of water; brings water from the oceans to areas over
land
• Water scarcity and abundance determine vegetation type
• Replenishes ground water
• A medium of life in aquatic habitats
Condition • In streams and rivers there is the constant hazard of being washed away
• Repeated pounding and suction of wave action on sea shores
• Holdfasts, flexible bodies, behavioral strategies of avoidance
pH of water and soil • Direct effect
→ toxicity – upsetting osmoregulation, enzyme activities, gas
exchange
• Indirect effect
→ influence on availability of nutrients and/or concentration of toxins
• Environment with neutral to slightly alkaline pH is more hospitable than
acidic ones.
• Some prokaryotes can thrive under very acidic (acidophiles) or very
alkaline conditions (alkaliphiles).
Salinity of Water • Organisms respond to salt like the Response Curve 3
• Creates osmoregulatory problems (same as drought and freezing); Osmotic
resistance to water uptake
• Halophytes – have metabolites for osmoregulation
• Others have a way of pumping out excess salt from their tissues to avoid
damage
Mineral Nutrients • Organisms respond to mineral nutrients like the Response Curve 3
• Interactions between foraging for water and nutrients (for plants)
• Plants – from soil or surrounding water
• Animals – in organic form, from food

Adaptations to drought stress

Xeromorphic traits in plants

o Conserve water
 o Morphological features such as waxes, sunken stomates, multiple epidermal layers, leaf
folding/rolling, trichomes, etc.
o Physiological adaptations such as water storage, protective molecules, stomatal closure, CAM, etc.
o Dormancy
o Poikilohydry – lack of ability to maintain water content to achieve homeostasis (Resurrection
plants)
In animals
o Structural, physiological, and behavioral adaptations
o Impermeable teguments, reduction in urine flow rate, seasonal migration, estivation, hoarding of
food, space choices

Adaptations to flooding

Animals – move out of the flooding area

Plants (structural and physiological adaptations)
o Aerechymatous roots
o Pneumatophores (lateral roots that grow upward out of the mud and water)
o Capacity to elongate shoot parts upon submergence (hormonal response, ET)
o Increased porosity (longitudinal transport of O2)
o Change in timing of reproduction

Light

- visible electromagnetic radiation (400-700 nm)

- primary energy source for the biosphere
- for humans, light is a condition

Characteristics that Influence its Effects on Organisms

Intensity (How much?)

o strength of light
o measured in lux or footcandles
o depends on distance from source
o other factors
▪ season, weather, cloud cover, time of day, plant cover, air particles
▪ angle of incoming light
• low angle-low intensity
• high angle-high intensity
▪ variations in Earth’s orbit
• eccentricity (how elliptical the orbit is)
• obliquity (degree of tilt)
• precession (direction of tilt)
• variations in solar energy output (solar cycle)
Quality (what wavelengths?)
o Longer wavelength – lower energy
o Shorter wavelength – higher energy
Periodicity (for how long?) Earth’s Obliquity (tilt) and Precession
o duration of day length (direction of tilt) affects sunlight’s
o function of latitude and season periodicity and directionality.
Directionality (from what angle?)
o Angle of incidence
o Function of latitude, season, and time of the day
Fate of Incoming Solar Radiation

Transmitted, reflected, refracted, absorbed, scattered

In plants – reflected (without change in wavelength), absorbed (raise plant temp., contribute to
transpiration, reach chloroplasts and drive photosynthesis), transmitted (after some wavelengths have
been filtered out; change in both quality and intensity of light)

Light as an environmental factor

As a Condition – involved in circadian rhythms, photoperiodism (growth of movement in response

to the length of day and night), phototropism (growth of organisms, especially in plants, in response to
light stimulus), phototaxis (for moving organisms)
As a Resource – involved in phototrophy (use light as a source of energy), photosynthesis (utilizing
Photosynthetically Active Radiation, PAR wavelengths which depend on the primary pigment used
for photosynthesis)
o NOT ALL PHOTOTROPHIES CAN PHOTOSYNTHESIZE
Shade is a resource depletion zone (RDZ) because shading reduces the intensity of light and changes
which particular wavelengths are transmitted across

Types of Plants based on Light Utilization

Heliophytes (a.k.a. Sun Plants) Sciophytes (a.k.a. Shade Plants)

needs full sun for growth Inhibited under full sun

efficient use of high light intensity ▪ never reach More efficient Ps at low light intensities ▪ often
photosynthetic saturation ▪ Thin, angled leaves reach saturation levels at 20% full sunlight
Large, horizontally oriented leaves w/ lots of
chlorophyll and accessory pigments

Temperature and Heat

→ Temperature
- measure of the average kinetic energy of the atoms or molecules in the system
→ Heat
- thermal energy transferred from a hotter system to a cooler system
- 0 heat flow if in thermal equilibrium
→ Part of the descriptions for macroclimate (what weather stations and what we represent with climate
diagrams) and microclimate (climatic variation on a scale of a few km, m, cm; measured over short
periods of time)
→ Affected by
o Altitude
o Latitude
o continental/maritime location
o surface features
▪ vegetation (↑ vegetation, ↑ energy)
▪ ground color (darker color like soil has a higher energy because it absorbs light)
▪ water features
▪ boulders
▪ burrows
→ Organisms respond to temperature like the Response Curve 1 of Shelford’s Law of Tolerance
→ In microorganisms
o hyperthermophiles (thrive at very high temp)
o thermophiles (live at high temp)
o mesophiles (moderate temp)
o psychrophiles (low temp)
Types of Organisms Based On

Stability of body temperature Source of energy for regulating body temperature

Poikilotherm (‘pokilo’ = varying) Ectotherm – heat from outside (environment)

Homeotherm (‘homeo’ = same) Endotherm – heat from inside (organism’s own
metabolism)

Note:

✓ Many poikilotherms are ectotherms and many homeotherms are endothermic, BUT some animals that
exhibit facultative endothermy are poikilothermic.
✓ Endotherms and ectotherms co-exist
o High cost-high benefit strategy of endotherms
▪ High-cost because they have own metabolism to maintain temp. and therefore
consumes its own energy
▪ High-benefit because they are always at the optimum level of performance.
o Low cost-low benefit strategy of ectotherms.

Effects of Extreme Temperatures on Organisms

Low temperature High temperature

Chilling injury Denaturation of proteins

Freezing Dehydration

Some Adaptations to Extreme Temperatures

Insulation (e.g., blubbers) Freeze-avoidance To high temp.

Evaporative cooling ✓ (Ice crystals are prevented ✓ Modified membranes
✓ panting, sweating from forming) and proteins
Adjustment of supercooling Freeze-tolerance ✓ Protective layers
points ✓ (Encourage formation of (waxes)
Countercurrent heat extracellular ice to minimize ✓ Reflective surfaces
exchangers intracellular damage) Other anatomical features
✓ blood vessels in bird’s feet Other morphological,
anatomical, and behavioral
features
Resting stages under extreme temperatures:

• Torpor – state of low metabolic rate (hrs)

• Hibernation – prolonged ‘stasis’ (months) during winter
• Estivation – prolonged ‘stasis’ during summer

Temperature as a stimulus

• Whether or not an organism starts development (e.g., germination)

• May interact with other stimuli (e.g., photoperiod)
• Growth, flowering, germination, ripening of fruits

Interaction of temperature with other factors

• Disease – conditions may favor growth and/or spread of disease agent, or weakening of host defenses
• Competition – modifies the response to temp because of the presence of a competitor
• Humidity – RH closely tied to temperature (↑ T, ↑ water it can hold)
 System Science and Feedback Mechanisms
THE SYSTEM CONCEPT
→ System – portion of the universe that can be set apart
→ Boundary – set system apart from its surroundings
→ For observing and measuring changes
→ To study complex problems
Systems Thinking
✓ Inputs and outputs
✓ Boundaries and control mechanisms
✓ Positive and negative feedbacks
✓ Interactions with other systems
✓ Systems dynamics models (stocks, flows, cycles)
✓ Emergent properties
Earth System Science
✓ Holistic approach
✓ A whole system
✓ Many interacting parts
Three Basic Types of Systems
Earth
✓ A closed system
✓ Boundary permits exchange of energy, but not matter (or
negligible), with its surroundings
✓ Amount of matter fixed, finite
✓ Changes in one part affect other parts
Earth’s Subsystems / Reservoir
1. Atmosphere
o Mixture of gases
o Predominantly N + O
2. Hydrosphere
o + Cryosphere (frozen parts of the planet)
o Totality of Earth’s water
3. Geosphere
o Solid Earth
4. Biosphere
o Living and organic matter not yet decomposed
o + Anthroposphere (made or modified by humans for use in human activities and human habitats)
o + Technosphere (also referred as anthroposphere)
Earth’s subsystems are open
systems.
✓ Exchange both energy
and matter across its
boundary.
Note: Everything is interconnected.
Feedback
✓ A system response, occurs when the output of the system also serves as an input
✓ Leads to changes in the state of the system

Negative Feedback (Balancing Feedback)

Positive Feedback (Reinforcing Feedback)

Feedback loops interact

Tipping Points
✓ Critical point/threshold in an evolving situation beyond which a system can be pushed to a new and
irreversible development.
What sustains life on Earth?
1. Hydrothermal vent
2. Lake Vostok, Antarctica
Two Secrets of Survival: Energy Flow and Material Cycling
✓ An ecosystem survives by a combination of energy flow and material cycling
✓ Interactions between the Earth’s subsystems are evident in these processes
✓ Energy flows through the subsystems
✓ Energy flowing through the subsystems can be harnessed for use in human societies.
Biogeochemical Cycles
✓ Pathway by which a chemical element moves through both biotic (bio) and abiotic compartments of the
earth (geo= atmos~, geo~, and hydrosphere)

Climate – average conditions, long term

Weather – day-to-day conditions, short term
~Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.~

Climate Engine Components

1. Atmosphere
✓ Made up of 78% N2, 21% O2
Clouds – cooling and warming effect
Aerosols – effect depends on color
GHG – CO2 & H2O vapor minor but potent GHG* + CH4, N2O, O3
Air circulation – driven by uneven heating
Earth is a greenhouse planet.
Solar Energy is the primary fuel for the Climate Engine.
Solar energy drives:
o Air circulation
o Ocean currents
o Water and Carbon Cycles
Solar forcing – variation in solar activity (solar cycle)
Orbital climate forcing – Milankovitch cycle
2. Hydrosphere
Hydrologic cycle
Ocean currents
CO2 absorption
Earth’s reflectivity
o Reflectance = albedo
Positive Feedback on warming when snow and ice melt.
3. Geosphere
Affects:
o Air circulation
o Ocean currents
 o Hydrologic cycle
o Carbon cycle
Landmass movements affects air and water circulation.
Volcanic eruptions release volcanic ash and gases; increase CO2 and particulate matter in the air.
4. Biosphere
Life is also a part of how the world works.
o Material cycling (C, H2O)
o Emit and absorb gases
o Thermal properties
Drivers of Climate Change
o Natural vs. Anthropogenic
Indicators of Climate Change
- GHG
- Temperature
- Weather patterns
- Ice (snowpack, sea ice, glacier, permafrost)
- Ocean acidity, temperature, level
- Life patterns