3. Living things like us depend on other
living and nonliving things found in
your environment for food, shelter,
protection, and reproduction.
Our environment is made up of
everything that surrounds us.
4.
5. BASIC COMPONENTS OF AN
ECOSYSTEM
All the living and nonliving things
that you interact with in your
environment make up an
ecosystem.
The living things are known as the
biotic components while the
nonliving things are the abiotic
components of the ecosystem.
8. PRODUCERS
Organisms capable of making their
own food.
Thus they are also called
autotrophs or “self – feeders”.
They only require inorganic nutrients
and the energy from the sun to
synthesize sugar and other organic
compounds in their bodies.
9.
10. CONSUMERS
Organisms that cannot make their
own food.
Thus, they are also called
heterotrophs or “other feeders”.
They depend on the food made by
other organisms for their survival.
11.
12. Organisms that feed directly on
producers are called first order.
Animals that eat first – order
consumers are called second
order.
Consumers that feed on second –
order consumers are called third
order consumers.
13. The succession of consumers from
the producers is one of the most
complex networks of interaction
among organisms in an ecosystem.
14. Herbivores, such as cows and horses,
feed on plants.
Carnivores, such as tigers and lions,
eat the flesh of other animals.
Omnivores, like humans, feed on both
plants and animals.
Scavenger is a consumer that feeds on
the tissues of dead animals.
15. DECOMPOSERS
Also called saprotrophs, are
microorganisms that cause plants
and animals to decay and release
substances that are reused by green
plants or producers.
Many inorganic compounds needed
by producers may not be readily
available if there were no
decomposers.
16.
17. ABIOTIC COMPONENTS
Ecosystem do not only involve
interactions among living organisms.
They also constitute the nonliving or
abiotic components that influence
these interactions.
They include physical factors of of
the environment.
18. For instance, producers like plants
and other chlorophyll – bearing
organisms need solar energy to
make their own food through the
process called photosynthesis.
19. Animals and non – chlorophyll –
bearing organisms are also
influenced by abiotic factors.
Other abiotic factors such as soil,
rocks and minerals depend on
water, the universal solvent, for
them to be used by living things.
20. ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS IN
AN ECOSYSTEM
A relationship may be beneficial or
harmful to the ecosystem, but the
overall effect is dynamic balance
among the organisms and the
populations that make up the
ecosystem.
Some interactions tend to over – lap
with one another; some are part of a
larger interaction.
21. AMENSALISM
The relationship in which one
population is inhibited while the
other one is not affected.
The antibiotic inhibited the growth
of one species but did not affect
the growth of the other species.
22.
23. COEVOLUTION
Occurs when two or more
interacting members of a
community evolve in such a
manner that they end up matching
one another in terms of physical
features.
24.
25. COMPETITION
Takes place when members of the
same or different species attempt to
use resources that are limited in
supply and end up competing for
these resources.
26.
27. HERBIVORY
The process whereby an animal
eats a plant or plantlike organisms.
Organisms that feed on plants are
called herbivores or grazers.
28.
29. PREDATION
Involves a violent
fight between
predator and prey,
with one killing the
other to survive.
The predator seeks,
kills, and eats its prey
to prolong his own
life.
The prey is the
organism that the
predator takes as
food.
30.
31. SCAVENGING
A unique relationship between two
organisms and takes place when a
living organism feeds on the
remains of a dead animal.
32.
33. SYMBIOSIS
Most species
survive because
of their
“amicable”
relationships with
other species.
One such
relationship is
symbiosis, in
which a close
and permanent
association exists
between
organisms of
different species.
42. ENERGY TRANSFER IN AN
ECOSYSTEM
The existence of an ecosystem is
entirely dependent on the energy that
circulates among the producers and
consumers in it.
To be able to function, an ecosystem
has to have energy, which is derived
from the sun.
43. THE FOOD CHAIN
The sequence that shows the feeding
relationships between the organisms
in the different trophic levels of an
ecosystem.
The trophic levels are the positions
that different organisms occupy in the
food chain.
These levels are divided into the first,
second and third levels.
44.
45. Producers form the first trophic level of
the biotic community.
These plants are eaten by consumers,
the second trophic level made up of
animals that eat the producers.
46. Herbivores make up the primary
consumers while carnivores, which
eat herbivores, are considered
secondary consumers.
The latter consumers are eaten by
higher – order animals called tertiary
consumers.
47. THE FOOD WEB
An organism in one food chain can
belong to other food chains.
In turn, different food chains can be
grouped to form a complex
interrelationship called food web.
Unlike the food chain, the food web
shows that organisms have more than
one source of food.
48.
49. THE ENERGY PYRAMID
Fewer organisms are found as you go
higher in the food chain.
A pyramid of numbers shows this
clearly.
Some organisms may be small but
very numerous, so population size
may not be a good measure of how
much of an organism there is in a
habitat.
50.
51.
52. The energy in the pyramid, also called
food pyramid, illustrates the
distribution of energy in an ecosystem.
53. It shows that energy is maximized at
the producer level, and decreases with
increasing consumer levels.
Generally, the amount of energy
transferred from one organism to
another is reduced to about 10%.
54. This can be explained by the fact that
organisms use some of the energy to
maintain life processes, while
releasing some energy into the
environment as heat.
The energy pyramid further suggests
that due to the minimal amount of
energy received, only few carnivores
are sustained in a food web.
