Week 5

 

Week 5: 

1.) This week in class, we learned about ecology. Ecology is the relationship between living things and their environment. We discussed three ecological concepts in class: ecosystems, habitats, and biomes. An ecosystem is a community of living and nonliving things that interact in an environment. A habitat is a specific place where particular organisms live. A biome is a large-scale category of ecosystem that has similar climate conditions and dominant types of plants and animals. There are six biomes: marine, forest, tundra, desert, grassland, and freshwater. We also learned about food chains vs. food webs. Food chains follow a singular path of energy flow. It describes who-eats-who, and starts with a producer, then proceeds to a consumer, etc. Food webs are more detailed and show how different living things in an ecosystem are related to what they eat. Finally, we discussed the 10% rule in a food chain. As you move up trophic levels, only 10% of the energy is retained from the food that is eaten. Most of the energy is lost through metabolism, head production, and insufficient energy use. We also got to see updates on your fast plants!

3.) Most of the concepts that we discussed in class were clear to me. I have a clear understanding of what food chains and food webs are and the differences between the two. The 10% rule also came very easily to me. I also understood the concept of ecosystems, habitats, and biomes; however, I am still a little confused when classifying things between these categories. For example, in class, I wanted to classify a pond as an ecosystem. This did become a little more clear to me when we elaborated on it a little in lecture. I think that more opportunities to classify things between these categories will help to ease my confusion.

5.)  In class this week, when talking about biomes, we discussed the climate, precipitation, and temperature of biomes. I was left wondering how these characteristics have changed over time due to global warming. Are we seeing a change in the climate, precipitation, and temperature of the different biomes, or are they still relatively the same? If they are changing, could this result in less diversity between the biomes?