People in Earth

Ecosystem
Lesson 1.

Where Living
Things are Found
Learning Objectives
At the end of the period, the students must be
able to:
1. know about the living and nonliving things;
2. classify the different parts of ecosystem; and
3. understand the purposes of the different parts
of ecosystem and their changes.
Living Things and Their
Environments Where things live:

 Hot dry places

 Cool shady forests
 Water
 In the ground
 On plants
Environment: Everything around a living
thing

All living things need food, water, air and shelter.

Many living things can share an environment and
thus must also share the things they need to live.
Living Things and Non-living Things

Living Things
 Any thing that needs food, water, air and shelter.
Non-living things
 Do not need food, water, air and shelter.
o Air
o Sunlight
o Water
o Rocks
o Soil
 
The Parts of an Ecosystem

Ecosystem
 The living and nonliving things that affect each other or
interact
Example : pond

a. Population
 A group of the same kind of living things that live in the
same place at the same time.
b. Community
 All the populations that live in an ecosystem.

c. Habitat
 The home of all the living things that make
up the community (provides all the needs
including living and nonliving things).
The Parts of an Ecosystem Populations
Frog
Birds
Insects
Water lilies
Cattails
and etc.
 The ecosystem of this pond is made up of all the
living and nonliving things that interact in and around
the pond.
 Nonliving things , such as air, sunlight, water, rocks
and soil are also part of ecosystem. The community
of living things needs the nonliving things to survive.
 Pond is the habitat or home of all living things that
make up the community.
 The edge of the pond is the habitat for the cattails.
How Ecosystems Change
2 ways an ecosystem can change:

1. Change by nature:
Floods : harms ecosystem but flood brings new
layer of rich soil to river bank
Fires: doesn’t destroy all seeds in the ground. The
surviving seeds grow into new plants. As the plants
grow, animals that feed on them will return to the
area.
2. Change by living things:
People cut down trees and use wood to build
homes and make other products. Beavers cut
down trees to build dams or lodges in
streams. The other animals that lived in the
trees must find new homes, sometimes it will
be nearby part of the ecosystem or will need
to live somewhere completely different.
Ecosystem

Forest
An area in which the main plants are trees.
Some forest named for types of trees that
grow in them or the area in which they grow.
1. Deciduous Forests
 Deciduous Forests are forest made
up mostly of trees such as maples
and oaks.
 Grow in places that have warm,
wet summers and cold winters
 Specific changes to forest during
seasons (fall, spring, summer, winter)
 Plant life – ferns, shrubs and mosses
 Animal life – insects, spiders, snakes,
frogs, birds, rabbits, deer and bears
2. Tropical Rain Forests
Tropical Rain Forests Grow in places like Hawaii and
Costa Rica
 Hot and wet all year
 Trees grow very tall and their leaves stay green all
year
 More types of living things live in rain forest than
anywhere else
3 layers
 Canopy – top layer : gets lots of water and sunlight
 Understory – middle layer: shorter trees, orchids
mosses and ferns grow on trunks of the tall trees
 Forest Floor – lowest layer: little sunlight, few
nutrients found in soil, plant find other ways to get
nutrients. Many kinds of plants and animals make
home in this layer.
3. Coastal Forests
 Lots of rainfall Not too cold or too
hot weather
 Thick, tall trees
 Same 3 layers as tropical rain forest
4. Coniferous Forests
Very cold winters and cool summers
 Trees forms from seeds in cones and needle –like leaves
(don’t loose needle leaves)
 Trees are triangular shape – help keep heavy snow from
piling up
 Many lakes and streams
 Trees stay green all year – called evergreens examples are
firs, spruce and pine
Desert
It is an ecosystem found where there is
very little rainfall. (less than 25 cm. per
year)
 Cold Deserts:
 Freezing temperatures/blizzards in
winter
 Hottest months – as hot as hot deserts
Desert Ecosystem Hot Deserts:
 Temperatures about 110 degrees Fahrenheit
during day
 Temperatures about 45 degrees Fahrenheit at
night
 Mild winters in which temperatures stay
above freezing
Desert Plants Grow low to ground – keep cool
 Thick stem that stores water
 Skin and spines help plant from losing water
 Spines also protect the plant from being
eaten by animals
 Shallow roots that spread out near soil’s
surface and can quickly soak up the water
Desert Animals
 Desert animals get most of their water by eating
plants that store water or by eating other
animals
 Reptiles: snakes and lizards
 Mammals: bats, rabbits, squirrels – active at
night when cooler. During day sleep in shelters.
Some animals burrow into the soil
 Others: scorpions and insects – their hard body
coverings help prevent them from losing water.
Water

 Water ecosystem covers more than 70 % of Earth’s

surface
 Salt Water: water that has a lot of salt in it
 Oceans and seas (plus marshes and a few lakes) have
salt water - these are called Saltwater ecosystems
 Fresh water: water that has very little salt in it.
 Lakes, rivers, ponds, streams and marshes – are
freshwater ecosystems
1. Saltwater
 Amount of salt in ocean water is different in
different places.
 Near surface – rain makes water less salty
 Also less salty near shores where fresh water
from rivers and streams flows into oceans
 Tide Pool: saltwater ecosystem that forms near
shoreline
2. Oceans are Earth’s largest ecosystem
 Not all parts of oceans are the same:
 Saltiness of water can be different
 Water is deeper in some places
 Water temperature also changes from place to place
 How deep into water sunlight can reach affects the
kinds of living things found in different parts of
oceans
Ocean Ecosystem Ocean divided into zones (how much sunlight it
gets)
 Where water is shallow, sunlight reaches the ocean bottom.
Allows many plants to grow and animals that feed on these plants
live here.
 Sunlight cannot reach the floor of the deep ocean. This part of
ocean has almost no plants. Water very cold here. Because few
plants (if any at all) the deep ocean also has the fewest animals.
 Farther from shore, sunlight cannot reach the ocean bottom.
Plants float near the surface, where they can get sunlight.
Swimming animals come to surface to feed. Others feed on the
animals that eat the plants.
3. Freshwater
 Main freshwater ecosystems are rivers, streams, lakes
and ponds
 Rivers and streams have moving fresh water. (quick or
slow moving)
 How fast water moves determines what living things
can survive in water
 Water in lakes and ponds is still.
 As in ocean, most plants and animals in a lake or pond
live in the shallow water. The fewest plants and animals
live where the water is too deep for sunlight to reach
the bottom.
 Lakes have deeper water and are usually larger than
ponds
 Water temperature depends on where lake or pond is
and how deep water is.